She tried to remember what happened at Therum once. She had even gone to the consort's garden to get help pulling the memories back up. It was still a jumbled mess but not nearly as bad as it was before the visit.
She remembered before rather well. Liara had just arrived at the dig site a few days previously and had been tied up in meetings, paperwork, and getting familiar with the dig site itself. Liara had decided to explore as she was allowed around the ruins to get a better feel for the layout and had ended up in one of the farthest nooks along with a young student, a Salarian assisting on his first dig. They hadn't even heard the commotion until they were literally on top of it. The pops and shouts had been echoing and Liara had (unknowingly very wisely) said they should take a small offshoot from the main path and stay quiet. Below she had seen machines and Krogans, slaughtering the team she had been getting to know. Liara had been horrified but decades of training had kicked in as she grabbed the student and made sure he couldn't make noise, couldn't see. She whispered to him telling him they needed to be quiet and stay hidden, that they could escape. She watched the massacre below and tried to keep the terror out of her voice.
She had dragged him away and again explained their situation. She had found them a hidden corner to sleep in and had waited with him in silence for nearly a full day before he nodded off. Liara had then snuck back to the camp and stolen a container of water and a pocket knife. They waited in silence for another two days before Liara went back again and found them ration packs. Another two days and Liara went back for more water and looked until she found a handgun. It had a single clip in it, half used. The student had stared at her with twitching eyes and trust. So much trust. She never even got his name.
It was a few days later and Liara had woke to find him gone. She panicked and tried to wait, then heard screaming. She scrambled only to watch as the Krogan battlemaster beat the student, making only one demand. "Where is Liara T'Soni?" The Salarian had pointed up at her, a machine killed him and they charged her. Liara had run as fast as she could.
She dodged around crates and tumbled over a mangled body. The visit to the garden helped Liara to pause that moment, to realize that there were chunks of flesh missing from that Asari. To realize that her corpse had been eaten.
Before she'd only remembered running, randomly she fired the gun and once caught one of the machines in the leg. It was trampled underfoot by its fellows. She had seen the room then, she remembered being shown how the field could still be activated and the hope that the team had of being able to activate other devices. She had been equally thrilled when the elevator beyond that field had worked too. The whole team had voted to use it instead of their rickety omni-built one. Liara had used biotics to get up on that exposed floor, had frantically tried to type in the code.
She remembered being caught and struggling in terror, screaming as the machines and Krogan fired at the field. Her heart pounding as the battlemaster had flung himself and his biotics at the field. He'd had rockets flung at her until the volcano grumbled and then they stopped. He'd eyed the mining drill, listened to the earth, and opted to wait.
She remembered the continuous requests, threats, and pleading that he used to try and get her to explain how to drop the field. He used his long supply of food and water to torture from a distance. Mostly she remembered the pain from being stuck in the same position, the pain from not having any water, the creeping terror and then dismal acceptance.
The revisit helped her remember specifics of conversation, the way her mind had wandered and gone nearly mad. For the first time, with help, she remembered her first meeting with Manolo Shepard. He tried to talk to her; she had whispered and rasped to herself thinking she was hallucinating before death. She was able to remember the fear in Kaidan's voice as he asked how long she had been there. The rumble of the mining drill. The pain of dropping suddenly to the ground, how much it hurt as Shepard and Kaidan had to force her arms down to her sides. Asking again, how long where you there, do you know where you are, do you know what your name is. Her eyes glazed and unfocused. She had stuttered out fear, is he still here, he could find us, why, why, why? They'd given her a booster shot, Kaidan had given her water which she'd choked on. Vomiting from drinking too fast, too close to the veil. How Ashley had carried her as they made their escape and working to protect her as they were beset by the Krogan and the Geth.
Liara had remembered a flash of blue and white before waking on the Normandy.
What she learned on the revisit was that they were losing. The enemy had all the advantages, and they were pinned down. Liara had called her biotics, had called on her life, and had simply pushed with all she had. Geth flew off the platform back to the ground below, the Krogan staggered, Shepard and Kaidan and Ashley struck to kill. Liara passed out.
Karin Chakwas woke her gently asking her to not move or talk, just explaining that she was safe on the Normandy and they were going to the Citadel away from all this madness. Liara had fallen back asleep.
A/N: I tend to flit between multiple Shepards, so if you noticed that Manolo is male but previously Shepard was mentioned as female, you are correct and totally sane.