Okay, new chapter, a bit longer as promised.

A few things before you read this: - I should warn you that there is an overdose of sloppy Mary Sue material in this chapter.

BUT, this chapter marks the end of some kind of first part. The plot will greatly evolve from chap. 14, especially when it comes to Willis, her relationship with Shepard and Liara.

I hope you will like it, thanks a lot to the new followers & don't forget to review!

Chapter 13

Once inside the hospital, she asked the receptionist where she could find Doctor Andrews and she was told that he was in his office. She quickly went up the stairs, knowing where it was for having spent endless hours in this little room packed with files up to the ceiling, and knocked on his door sharply. The old doctor opened almost immediately and readjusted his glasses on his nose, frowning when he realized who it was.

'Willis,' her greeted her, taking a step on the side to let her in. 'Are you alright?'

'I need the recording, doc,' she simply said, letting herself fall in a chair.

'Is it the Asari who visited you last week?' he asked after a moment of silence, rummaging through a drawer of his desk.

'Yes,' Willis nodded, turning a little pale when the doctor took out a datapad on which she knew was an audio file. 'I think I need this. I don't want to listen to it but… I need to hear her say it to believe it.'

'Are you sure you want to do this?' the doctor asked seriously, knowing this could very well cause Willis to fall into relapse and spend another year in the psychiatric department. 'Do you feel ready? Maybe you should wait until you are sure you want to be with her, don't you think?'

'I'm ready Andrews,' Willis nodded, though she had to swallow a lump in her throat. 'I'm going to cry, I'm going to scream, and I'll end up on the floor, but I'm ready. It's about time I faced my demons.'

'Okay,' Andrews accepted despite his reserve, handing her the datapad. 'I'll give you some privacy. If you need me, just press this button, okay? I won't be far. If at any time you feel what must not be felt, turn it off. I don't want to pick little pieces of you with a spoon once again.'

'Aye, doc,' she whispered, her fingers tightly clenched on the edges of the datapad.

A shiver coursed down her spine when she heard the door close behind her back, and she shifted uneasily on her chair, staring at the device in her hands. She hesitated for long minutes, her thumb hovering over the play button, her fingers shaking so much that more than once, her heart missed a few beats when she thought she had pressed the button inadvertently. To try and muster some courage, she thought about Liara, about what she could have if she had the guts to listen to this and enough faith to believe those two damned word, and for one precious second, it worked. Only, the second later, she threw the datapad on the desk and buried her face in her palms, tapping her foot impatiently on the floor. She took a deep breath and stared at the device as if it were her worst enemy, rubbing her moist palms against her thighs. She needed to tame her emotions but knowing what would come out of the pad didn't help. She knew the moment she would press the button, she would start crying, hating, begging, and she wasn't so sure she was strong enough to go through that anymore. But then, if she wasn't ready in that moment, she would never be. She ground her teeth and fetched the datapad once again, her breath coming out short and shallow, and she settled a little more comfortably in her chair. She closed her eyes forcefully, bit the inside of her cheeks, and finally tapped a finger on the button. A sob got trapped in her throat as soon as she heard the first word of the recording, and she pressed the balls of her palms into her eye sockets, tears already flowing past her cheeks.

'Willis!'

The moment she hears that voice, trembling, wavering, crying out, Willis knows something's wrong. She tries to ignore the vicious and slithering feeling of terror that creeps in her veins and poisons her blood, and turns up the sound of her omnitool to make sure she won't mishear anything.

'Shora, what's happening?' she asks, doing her best to disguise her nervousness and fear with a neutral tone.

'Goddess Willis, mercs have just entered the house!' Shora sobs, the sound of a door being closed following.

Willis' breath gets caught in her throat and her tongue suddenly feels like cardboard in her mouth. Her worst fear, her scariest nightmare is becoming reality. A big ball of anger, guilt and pain grows in the pit of her stomach and she thinks hard and fast to try and find a solution. The task is made difficult by the regular sniffles her bondmate has trouble containing, and the never ending cries of her little daughter burning her ears.

'Where are you exactly? Do you know how many they are?' she demands as she bends over the control console of her vessel, her fingers clutching its edge so tightly her knuckles turns white.

'I'm in the bedroom, but it's no use hiding, Elya won't stop crying,' her bondmate says, and Willis can hear doors of closets opening and closing as if Shora is looking for refuge nonetheless. 'I'm so scared Willis.'

'God, no, that can't be happening… Listen, you have to hide, Shora, if they find you…'

'I'm not leaving our daughter alone!' the Asari cries out before sitting down on the bed with an audible plop. 'Where are you Willis? Please help us.'

'No, no, I can't!' Willis struggles to say, her throat so constricted that she had trouble breathing. 'God I can't, I'm too far away, I won't get there in time!'

Willis starts pacing in front her console, her fingers ruffling her hair and clutching wild strands nervously. She still can hear her baby crying out loudly and how her mother is unsuccessfully trying to calm her down with soothing words and probably gentle caresses. Her brain is working so hard to think of something, anything to do, anything that could save them, but nothing comes.

'Goddess Willis, what are they going to do to us?' Shora says between heartbreaking sobs.

Willis lets out a strangled cry when the question is asked because she knows the answer all too well. Those mercs will do anything to get to her and that includes killing her family. They're going to kill the both of them. She suddenly panics, her breath coming out in short puffs as she punches codes to set course to Ilium. She sits in the pilot seat, then stands up again, checks how much time it's going to take before she reaches the planet, checks it once more and curses the galaxy when the two numbers flash in front of her eyes mockingly. Eleven hours. She kicks her chair violently and throws her fist into the led screen to make the offensive numbers disappear, blinded by tears. She fumes and starts pacing again, her trembling fingers digging in her temples.

'You have to hide,' Willis spurts out, bending over the console once more, too febrile to do anything else. 'Please sweetheart, try to hide, I'm begging you.'

'They're coming up the stairs, I can hear them!' Shora suddenly whispers, her soft voice almost covered by the hysterical cries of the baby.

Willis stiffens dramatically, her wide-open eyes dripping heavy tears. She knows it's now a matter of seconds before the door of the bedroom will open on the mercs and she still hasn't found a solution. She looks around the confined space, hoping to see something that might trigger a blessed epiphany, but there is simply nothing.

'God no, please, not this!' she begs between sharp intakes of breath. 'Please Elya, listen to Daddy, stop crying! Please baby, be quiet!'

'It's too late Willis!' Shora quickly breathes into her Omnitool as the door opens slowly, her voice breaking with a sob. 'I love you.'

'Don't say this, don't fucking say this!' Willis shouts, dropping her two fists heavily on her console, sending buttons flying through the cockpit.

'We both love you very much,' Shora continues under her breath. 'Please, be happy. You deserve to be happy. We love you.'

'No Shora, don't say goodbye,' Willis lets out in a strangled cry of pain and hate. 'They're not… They won't… Shora? Shora!'

Willis shrieks when she realizes her bondmate has turned off the sound on her Omnitool so that the mercs can't hear her. She can scream all she wants, shout at the top of her lungs, they will not hear her. She fiddles with her own device and tries to find a way to fix this but she can't. She can't concentrate enough, her fingers are trembling too damn much, and she's not a good tech. There nothing she can do and it drives her crazy. She stares at the glowing orange screen on her hand and pricks her ears, the cries of her daughter piercing her eardrums like sharp blades and poisoning every fiber in her body. She's sick, scared to death and she knows the worse is to come.

'Where's Willis?' a low growl asks, the sounds of heavy footsteps against carpet filtering through the device.

Willis stiffens and closes her eyes, her nails cutting into the skin of her palms painfully. She waits, her head bowed, her weight shifting from one foot to the other, the vibration of her vessel reverberating through her limbs. She doesn't know who the man is. The only thing she knows about him is his voice. But it's enough. The way he's said her name is now burnt in her brain. The tone, the accent, the depth of that voice are the only elements she needs. Now she's sure that if that merc crosses her path later, she will recognize him thanks to that voice. She will torture him, make him suffer, make him regret.

'I don't know where she is,' Shora answers bravely, somehow managing to not let fear and horror tint her words.

Willis cringes when she hears the answer and curses again. No, that's not good. Shora should have told them where she was, then maybe she would have had a chance.

'Does that thing never stop crying?' another voice rises, menacing, heavy with spite and hate. 'Shut up you little rat!'

Willis gasps at those words and her stomach convulses violently, her hand clenching the leather of her seat in a powerful grip.

'Leave my daughter alone you bastards!' she shouts into her Omnitool, forgetting that they cannot hear her anyways. 'I'll kill you, I'll fucking kill you!'

Willis rushes toward the bedroom of her ship and kicks the door open with her shoulder and she bends over the crib. The sheets are neatly folded at the foot and upon them lays the only item that could have soothed the little Asari. Her stuffed snail. Willis bought it, a week after Elya discovered the animal, in a toy shop on Earth. She is quick to grasp the plush toy and hold it against her chest, burying her nose in the fluffy shell of the snail and praying like she's never prayed before that her daughter would be left unscathed. She listens to every sound that reaches her through the device and her hearts hammers against her chest even more wildly when she hears the sound of a blade – a knife maybe, a big one – being taken out of its sheathe. The little Asari cries harder, Shora shouts and protests, the arm with the Omnitool apparently shaking , as if her bondmate is struggling. Willis stops breathing when all of the sudden, her daughter stops crying. There is a deafening silence for just a fraction of second that seems to last an eternity and before she knows it, the stuffed snail falls from her hands.

'Elya!'

The desperate cry tears the air like the sound of a shot being fired and Willis stares blankly at the snail lying at her feet as if she has trouble making sense of all those weird noises and sounds. Elya. Those four letters that burns her tongue and pound inside her head and ricochet against skull don't mean anything anymore. It's like a name that somehow feels both familiar and foreign. Elya. A little blue hand wrapped around her index. Bright blue eyes observing the world with an innocent curiosity. A little body that fits perfectly in the crook of her arms. A tiny, fragile baby. A knife planted in her heart. Something suddenly snaps inside Willis when she realizes that Elya, that little baby, her little daughter, has been killed. She takes a sharp intake of breath and starts suffocating, her sight blurred by tears. She brings her hands to her throat and falls to her knees, unable to look at anything else than the big smile painted over the face of the snail.

'No! No, no, no no no, that's not…' Willis starts, her voice strained by loud sobs. 'Oh God, no, Elya! My little princess, no, please, that can't be! Shora what happened? Shora answer me!'

Completely panicked, completely lost, Willis grabs the snail and shakes it violently, as if she expects it to answer her. But when no answers comes, she throws it against the wall with a powerful biotic wave and jumps to her feet, trying once again to re-establish a two-way connection with her bondmate. She fiddles with the many buttons that she cannot even distinguish through the layer of tears coating her eyes and flowing past her cheeks, but she does it nonetheless. Her fingers are shaking with the steady biotic energy pulsing through her whole body, the muscles in her shoulders contract painfully and more than once she trips over her feet as she makes her way back to the cockpit.

'Where is Willis?' another growl rises through the Omnitool, oblivious to the emotional breakdown Willis is experiencing on the other side of the line.

'My daughter…' Shora whispers. 'You killed my daughter… You…'

The dry and quick sound of a slap bursts and Willis gasps as if she's the one who received the blow. It's too much to take. Fury is now boiling in her veins, acid tears are trailing down her cheeks, and her biotics flares so wildly they burn the tip of her fingers.

'Don't touch my bondmate you piece of shit!' she screams, blue tendrils of energy splitting the air angrily, on the verge of pulling her hair out. 'Shora, put me back on line for fuck's sake!'

'For the last time, where is Willis?'

That's the one that killed her daughter. Her fingers clench the leather seat and rips the material when another biotic pulse makes her arm twitch violently. She wants to tell them where she is so badly, she wants to tell them she will surrender, she wants to tell them to take her life just in the hope that it will save her beloved bondmate. She stares at the broken screen above the console blankly, praying under her breath that Shora would reveal her location and try to save her life. But she knows her bondmate. And she knows she would never sell her out.

'I don't know,' Shora lies, and Willis grinds her teeth in desperation before she begins pacing once more, from the cockpit to the bedroom, her legs feeling like jelly and her heart swelling painfully in her chest. 'And if I knew I wouldn't tell.'

'Fine. Kill her. We'll find the bitch anyways.'

Willis stops dead in her tracks, a maddening twirl of pain, anger and hate rising in her. She doesn't know what to do, she doesn't know where to go. She has lost all traces of rationality left in her and starts opening the doors on her ship, then closing them, as if one of them could magically transform into a portal to her house, sobs echoing so loudly in her ears she doesn't even know if they're hers or her bondmate's. She takes off her jacket, suddenly too hot, and discards it carelessly on the floor with a shiver when the cool air engulfs her sweat-covered body. All she can think about is her bondmate, the only thing she can hear is the tremendous beating of her heart against her ribcage, the only thing she can do is wait for something to happen. She has never felt so powerless and useless than in this precise moment. She paces in a three square feet room, taking a step to the right, turning on her heels, taking a step to the left, as if she's a rat trapped in a cage. Suddenly, the all too familiar sound of the security of a gun being removed reaches her ears.

'Shora!' she shouts at the top of her lungs, eyes wide with terror staring at the blue cardigan she knitted for her bondmate that is neatly folded on the desk chair. 'Shora run! No! God no, please, no…'

The sound of a shot splits the air for just a fraction of second, and a moment later the communication is cut, three loud, deafening beeps echoing in her ears.

When the recording ended, Willis was curled up on the floor, pressing the datapad against her chest, loud sobs escaping her mouth and heavy tears rolling down her cheeks. Her whole body shook because of her now unstable biotics that made her muscles contract and she had trouble breathing both because of her cries and her diaphragm that tensed violently. For long minutes she remained like this, her shoulder rubbing painfully against the carpet and her fingers clutching the pad as if it were about to vanish into thin air. She felt naked, vulnerable and defenseless . She felt as if all the barriers she had built to protect herself from these horrible memories had been torn down at once the moment she had heard that voice, her bondmate's voice, for the first time in a year and a half. The whole scene had reeled before her eyes as if she were really living it. Her, on her ship, her bondmate, on Ilium, and the helplessness kicking in. The anger, the guilt and the pain had hit her in the stomach full-speed and had been tempted to throw the datapad against the wall and make it stop. But she hadn't. She had just been drawn to that voice, wanting to listen more of it despite all the cries, the sobs, the fear trailing along the sweet and melodious tones it used to carry. After so long, she had felt like she was meeting an old friend she had missed for too long and, somehow, it had brought her some comfort. And she knew she needed to hear the words. Be happy. Hear them, she had. But believing them and put them in practice appeared to be a much trickier task. She had hoped that after all this time elapsed, with an broader outlook and months spent trying to cope with the whole thing, she would have focused more on what she heard and less on what she felt. She had just been proved wrong.

Willis turned on her back, her chest rising and falling quickly, the recording playing in her head, over and over again. Heavy tears kept rolling down her temples before disappearing in the wild strands of blond hair, but she eventually managed to reduce her sobs to pained mewls. She tried to remember everything she had talked about with the doctor in that very room and chase the aching pain in her heart with the promise she had made to go on. You can't change the past. There was nothing you could have done. It is not your fault. She had heard these stupid phrases so many times that she actually had come to believe them. When at night she woke up, shivering and covered in sweat because of the same old bad dream in which she always imagined herself holding the gun that killed her bondmate, all she had to do was to repeat these already crafted sentences a few times until she could go back to sleep. Maybe all she needed to do was to listen to that recording again, and again, and again, then she would finally respect her bondmate's wish. Now, the big question was to know if she'd be strong enough to press that button again and endure the consequences. She had listened to it once and hadn't felt the desire to jump out the window, to her, that was a rather positive aspect.

Oh, it had been painful. But it had been a good kind of pain. What she feared the most was the pain that settled in her guts for days, weeks, years, and that ate her little by little from the inside until she had no soul and no hope left. But the pain she had felt when listening to that recording had felt exhilarating. It was sharp, violent, instantaneous. She had felt alive. She felt as if old wounds had reopened only so that they could heal better. She still thought her guilt would get the better of her, that hurt would eat her alive sooner or later, that she would die of sadness one of these days, but somehow these feelings were a little less sharp than they used to be. It wasn't a great improvement, but it was an improvement nonetheless. It was possible that, if she gave it some time, these feelings would subside, little by little, within weeks, months, years. It would certainly take time, but now the idea of letting her bondmate go and take another lover didn't look as difficult to accept as it had minutes ago. In the end, it could have been much worse. Could it be that she was truly starting to accept her past and setting a shy toe into what could be her present?

Willis wiped her tears with the back of her hands, and let out a shaky sigh as she got back on her feet before slumping into the chair. Maybe she could do this after all. Maybe she could live with her memories and not relive them all the time. Maybe she could remember her bondmate with a fond smile and warmth in her chest without thinking about how she tragically disappeared. Maybe she should just consider herself lucky to have spent six wonderful years with her beautiful bondmate and be thankful for everything she had learnt, everything she had gained, everything she had experienced. What if the reason why she couldn't let them go was that she actually had no one else to fill the void they would irremediably leave in her heart? What if she just needed someone to love who would love her back? What if this someone was Liara? She wouldn't know until she tried. She had nothing to lose. She had to try. Willis straightened on her chair when she heard the door open behind her, and made sure no more tears were coating her skin with a febrile hand.

'How are you feeling, Willis?' the doctor asked softly, landing a gentle hand on her shoulder.

'I'm fine,' she answered, suppressing a sniffle. 'Not perfect but… I needed this. It was… Enlightening, kind of.'

'Good,' Andrews nodded, sitting on his own chair. 'If there's anything else I can do for you…'

'What do you think Shora meant when she said that I deserved to be happy?' Willis suddenly asked, her finger tracing the contour of the datapad.

'Well, it speaks for itself, doesn't it?'

'But did that include finding someone else to live with? Do you think she would like it if I dated Liara?'

'I do. Shora loved you and I'm sure she would be totally fine with it.'

'How can you be so sure?' Willis insisted, standing to pace along the desk. 'It's not like she said it loud and clear, right?'

'Willis, I knew her almost as much as I know you,' the doctor said with a smile. 'I saw her every week for a year when she was pregnant, I brought your daughter into this world, I visited her when you were away on a mission. I had never met someone who loved with so much fierceness and fondness at the same time. To Shora, you were the one and only.'

'And she used to be the one and only, Andrews. I don't want to betray her with another one.'

'Think about it for a second Willis. Should the role be switched, would you rather wish she remained faithful to you and spend the rest of her life alone, depressed and angry with the whole galaxy?'

'Of course not, but that's not the point,' Willis shrugged, shaking her head with an obvious lack of conviction.

'It's exactly the point,' Andrews said softly, crossing his hands over his desk. 'You used to be so full of life, Willis, now you're just an empty shell walking around and pretending to be okay when you know you're not. It would break Shora's heart to see how much you've changed. The Willis she knew laughed all the time, shone with joy and radiated happiness. If she could see you right now, she wouldn't even recognize you. To honor her memory you need to be your true self, Willis. And if this Liara can help you get back to who you were before, then do it, without a second thought. If she can help you live again, Shora would feel immensely grateful, not betrayed.'

'You… Maybe you're right,' she breathed out, an awkward mix of relief and doubt welling up in her chest. ' I'm just… Scared. Liara seems to like me so much, I… I want to take it slow, but what if it's too slow for her?'

'If she truly likes you, she will accommodate you', the doctor reassured her. 'She seems to be kind and gentle, I have no doubt she'll wait until you feel ready. You won't know until you try, Willis, don't ruin your chances by giving it up before it's even started.'

'Okay, I'll try,' Willis eventually accepted, standing on shaky legs. 'I'm keeping the recording, you know, just in case.'

'Be careful not to indulge too much in listening to it,' Andrews advised, joining Willis next to the door. 'Shora lives through and in you, not that thing. You shouldn't need this to believe she'd want you to be happy.'

'I know, but… I'll believe it more if I hear it rather than think it,' she shrugged as she opened the door. 'I have an important mission tomorrow, I should go. Thanks for everything, Andrews.'

'You're welcome, Willis,' he nodded with a smile. 'Let me know about how things go, okay?'

'Will do.'

Andrews watched with a sigh as Willis left, a hand in her pocket and the other holding to the datapad tightly, hoping that this woman, whom he almost considered as his daughter after so many years, would finally climb back up the stairs she'd been walking down to Hell for the past year and a half.