This chapter is set right after chapter of Where They Travelled, and is a look into Liara and Ashara's back stories. I hope you like it.
"Well, here we are," Ashara says, her voice pensive. "Just the two of us."
The asari leans her head on her new wife's shoulder, watching as the Normandy disappears into the darkening Thessian sky. The last of their things have been unloaded, the crew are gone, and though it's not the first time the two of them have been alone together, this is different. As blissful as the few weeks they spent in Liara's safe house after the war ended were, that was a vacation. This time, it's permanent. Ashara's retired as a Spectre and left the Alliance that's been the backbone of her life ever since the SSV Perseus rescued her from Mindoir all those years ago.
Mindoir. That's the only other place she lived where there was grass underneath her feet, and as the earthy smell of the warm Thessian air fills her nose, the human feels the memories of the colony where she grew up stir in her mind.
"Are you all right?", Liara asks, noticing her distraction.
"Fine," she says reflexively, before taking a breath and remembering that she doesn't have to pretend with Liara. "Actually, I guess I'm feeling a little bit weird," she confesses. "Can you give me a few minutes? I just need to clear my head."
Her wife kisses her cheek. "Of course. Goddess knows we have enough boxes for me to go through. Take as much time as you need."
"I won't be too long," she promises.
The asari walks off towards their new house, and Shepard looks out at the fields that surround it. In the patterns of the plants, the former farm girl can still see hints that these were once well-maintained gardens, but it's clearly been many a long year since anyone's tended to them. Whatever their condition, she's glad for all the land. Though the memories aren't always easy to recall, she liked Mindoir.
Not that, as a restive teenager, she hadn't dreamed of getting off of the colony. Ashara had considered joining the Alliance when she grew up, but at the time, it was the chance to see the galaxy more than the military life that appealed to her. A merchant ship would have served just as well. There were so many stars to visit, and her home was just so damn provincial, a quiet little farming world that seemed to move at a glacial pace. She certainly hadn't been wrong about finding adventure in space, she reflected, but the way that she got there she wouldn't have wished on anyone.
In the first few months after the batarian attack, that horrible day had dominated her thoughts of her old home, but as time passed, it had stopped blotting out everything else quite so thoroughly. Even though they hadn't always been easy to remember, thinking about the good times growing up had helped her through the early years in basic and her first deployments. And there had been good times, many of them spent in fields like this one…
"Sarah Jessup."
Emily looks at Ashara as if she's lost her mind. "Sarah Jessup?", she repeats incredulously. "I'm pretty sure she's a lot more interested in boys than girls."
"Well, I didn't exactly get to chose my first crush," she protests. "Look at that curly strawberry hair. What could I do?"
"Plus she was the first girl in our class to develop tits," Emily teases her. She's not the jealous type, which is just one of the many things Ashara likes about her. It's not that she wants to be with someone else, but it's nice to be able to talk freely about this stuff .
"There was that," the green-eyed girl admits. "Anyway, after she'd made out with half the basketball team, I kind of got the idea that she might be straight. Broke my innocent young heart."
"As opposed to now, when you're a worldly and jaded 15-year-old?"
Ashara grins at the pretty brunette lying next to her in the shade of the tree. It's too hot to do much other than laze around, but right now, she can't say she minds. "Okay, maybe not that jaded. So what about you?", she inquires. "Who was the first girl you liked?"
Emily leans over and kisses her on the nose. "You."
"Me?", Ashara asks incredulously, swatting a fly buzzing too close to her head. She has excellent reflexes and the insect crashes to the ground. "I mean, I know I'm the first one you've dated, but really, you were never interested in any other girls?"
"Nah. I was too busy trying to figure out why I wasn't interested in the boys my mom kept trying to introduce me to. Then you started sitting next to me in algebra and it all made sense."
"It certainly wasn't math you were thinking about in that class," Ashara agrees, rolling over to kiss the brunette. Slim arms wrap around her back and she brushes back Emily's long hair so she can run her tongue along her neck. She's made it most of the way to her girlfriend's ear when she feels slim fingers start working their way under her loose blue shirt and up towards the swell of her breasts. Even though Emily's touch is sending bolts of desire through her body, she reluctantly halts her. "Are you sure, Em?", she asks. "I thought we we're going slow."
"Don't worry, Ashara," the girl laughs, palming her breast, "I already told you: you're the only girl for me."
Shepard sighs at the memory of her first girlfriend. Those had been good times. Because of Emily of course, but with the distance of years, Ashara can see that what she'd felt had a lot to do with the person she'd been when she'd felt it. She'd been so innocent back then, and everything had been so new to her. Lying under a tree, making out with her girl, she'd been able to imagine that they'd be together forever, that this was meant to be.
She'd never felt that way again until she met the asari who was now her wife. She'd dated other women after the batarian attack and even had a few relationships that lasted long enough for her to think she might be in love. But she'd never felt that same swelling in her heart, that head-over-heels belief that this was the woman she was going to spend her life with, until Liara. The difference is, she's not a naïve teenager anymore. She can distinguish between a teenage infatuation and the real thing, and she doesn't just believe that Liara's the one for her; she knows.
Liara sets down another box of video equipment in her new office. Fortunately, though spacious, the house isn't so big that carrying things around it is a real bother, which is exactly why Benezia and her growing throng of acolytes had abandoned it when Liara was just a baby. The larger estate where the information broker grew up is gone now, obliterated by the Reapers, and while she and Shepard have the credits to rebuild, this place will do just fine. A hundred rooms and a host of staff isn't what either of them wants.
The information broker opens up a desk drawer to put away some of her data pads, but she pauses at what she sees when she does. Lying there is a golden picture frame, and inside it rests a snapshot of Benezia and Aethyta standing together, arm in arm, a gorgeous waterfall behind them. Her mother is wearing a low-cut yellow sun dress, her father a red tank-top and slacks, and from the genuine smiles on their faces, Liara can tell these were truly happier times for the two of them.
She's surprised to see the picture. Her mother hadn't kept any reminders of her former bondmate where Liara could see them. The archeologist hadn't even known her name until a few years ago. No one would talk about Aethyta to Liara, not her mother and not her acolytes, no matter how much she'd wanted to know more…
"Archeology, little wing?" Skepticism is written all over her mother's beautiful face, along with a measure of disappointment. "It is a fine hobby for a bright girl like you, but I thought we had agreed that you would pursue something more forward-looking at university."
"We didn't agree," Liara protests. "You told me what you wanted me to do, and expected that I would just fall into line."
"Liara," Benezia tells her, "I only want what's best for you." Her voice is filled with that wise sufferance that when she was little, the young maiden had found comforting but right now is just annoying her. "These are pivotal times approaching, for the asari and for the galaxy, and I want you by my side, helping to guide our people into a brighter future, not losing yourself in the dusty past."
"But that's not what I want," she protests, getting steadily angrier in that way that only an adolescent can get with their parent. "Why must you always assume that I don't know what's best for myself?"
"Because I'm worried about you." Benezia reaches out affectionately, trying to put her arm around her daughter, but the younger asari pulls away. "You have so few friends and archeology is such a solitary profession. Most asari your age have dated at least a little but it seems that all you want is to bury your nose in one book after another. There is value in that, but not all that you need to know can be found between their pages."
Benezia's words hit too close to home, bringing up feelings that Liara's tried to keep suppressed. "Sage advice from the wise matriarch," the normally shy girl snaps. "I suppose you think that I should be more like you. That I should go and find a nice asari to fall in love with, and we can have a daughter, and then one day, she can leave me and never, ever see our child."
"That is not what I said," Benezia protests, but Liara's too upset to notice the obvious hurt in her mother's voice.
"Do you have any idea what it's like?", she asks angrily. "To wonder what's wrong with you that your own father doesn't want to see you? Or speculate about what terrible thing she might have done to be exiled from your life? Exactly what kind of asari did you bond with, mother?"
That summer afternoon had been one of the only times she'd seen Benezia cry. It had only been a few tears, but coming from the normally regal matriarch, it was still enough to make Liara regret what she'd said. But even though she'd apologized and they'd pretended that all was well, the truth was that their relationship had never fully recovered. Neither of them could be what the other one wanted. Liara couldn't be the politician her mother had tried to raise, and Benezia had never been able to open up to her, to treat her as a full adult. She'd never let Liara in on her plans with regard to Saren, and she hadn't told her about her father either, instead burying the truth about Aethyta out of hurt and embarrassment at the other matriarch's antics.
Benezia hadn't stopped caring about her former bondmate though. Her tears had been proof of that, and so too was this picture, kept in her office away from where her daughter might find it but still close at hand.
Liara brushes the dust off of the glass and sets it on the desk, just as, behind, her, she hears the sound of footsteps. Loving arms encircle her and she feels Ashara's lips press against the back of her crest.
"Are you feeling better?", the information broker asks.
"Yeah. It was just, being out there, in the garden, it reminded me of Mindoir. Summer days, and all that. They were good memories," she explains, "But sometimes those can be the toughest." She sighs, pulling her arms tighter around her wife. "I wish I wasn't still carrying so much baggage. We're supposed to be starting a new life and here I am, still half stuck in my old ones."
"You've come a long way since the Citadel," the asari reassures her, turning in her arms so that she can give her wife a soft kiss. "But there is a lot you have to work through. Be patient with yourself."
"That's not always my strong suit," Ashara admits. "But I'll try." She pauses, stroking the side of her bondmate's face as an inspiration strikes her. "You what I think might help? Planting a garden. Maybe some tomatoes, or strawberries, or whatever is good from around here. I just like making things grow and its been too long since I had the chance to do that."
Liara smiles admiringly at Ashara. Her bondmate has so many interests, while she's always been someone who focused on a few specialties to the exclusion of everything else. It probably helps to explain why the commander is go good at getting along with a range of people. "Is there anything you are not skilled at?", she jokes.
Shepard raises an eyebrow. "I did just mention patience, didn't I? Plus there's dancing, and at least according to you, driving the Mako." That last one gets a grin from her wife, and as she laughs against the former Spectre's shoulder, Ashara notices the photo on the desk. "What's this? I don't think I've ever seen this picture before."
"Neither had I until tonight. It must have been my mother's. I imagine it was missed when she moved out." There's a sadness in her eyes. "It reminded me of a fight we had, many years ago."
"A fight? And here I thought you were a goody two-shoes as a kid." Liara looks puzzled and Shepard shakes her head. "I don't really understand the expression either. It just means you did what you were told."
"Usually I did," she agrees, "But when it came to my career, Benezia did not approve of my choices. She wanted another politician, not a scientist."
"Well, I know she'd be impressed with what you've accomplished," Ashara reassures her wife. "I certainly am." She gives Liara another kiss, this one along the side of her crest, and she feels the asari arch into her arms.
"Perhaps this would be a good time for you to remind me of another of your many skills," Liara says mischievously, her mood improving as her fingers make their way down towards the curve of Ashara's breasts. No one is better than her bondmate at making her forget her cares, and right now, she wants the meld, to give and receive comfort and pleasure with the woman she loves.
"What about all the boxes?", the human asks. "It seems like there's still plenty to unpack."
"They will still be there in the morning. Whereas I have been informed by Lt. Vega that it is important to break in a new bed as soon as possible."
Shepard laughs at the sentiment, and as she leads her wife towards their bedroom, she concludes that though she may have plenty of old memories to deal with, right now, she'd rather make some new ones.
