A/N: Sorry about the longish delay. New job week turned out to be a little more time-consuming than I thought, and I figured the DLC might consume many a reader's time…so, here we are.
As always, thank you for the critique, encouragement, reviews, PMs, faves, follows, and other contacts, I really love it that you take the time to interact :)
Fuck, fuck, fuck… Shepard chanted, fingers digging into the soft skin of her forehead and temples. Fucking selfish, stupid bitch, look at this mess… Why did it have to be my ch— The chime of the door she barely heard, but Liara's simple gesture, just the arm circling tightly around her, was enough to wrench her up from the worst of her self-doubt and into the present.
OK, OK…come on. It's not so bad, she's right. It's done, there's no use for what-ifs. We can get through this— Her head shot up. "What?"
"You must feign sleep while we see who it is," Liara repeated, still only a handspan away. Her scent swirled in the tiny currents of air that her withdrawal had caused.
The words made sense to Shepard, but conflicted with the assurances that everything was fine and well in her addled brain. She had seen no real signs of concern from either Liara or Miranda—or her mother, for that matter. "Why?" she asked, puzzled.
She was trying to conjure the answer from Liara's eyes, but it was Miranda who spoke first, behind her. "We're just trying to give you a couple extra days of rest," she said quickly but evenly. "The admiralty is very keen on debriefing you and shoving you in front of as many cameras as they possibly can, not necessarily in that order. So, to that end, we'd like to curate the group of people who are aware that you're up and at least nearly about."
Shepard frowned, eyes still intent on Liara's. "I feel fine, I can handle a—"
"I know you can, but you should rest…you have earned a few days for yourself," the asari said comfortingly, gentleness in her gaze, but with the very distinct determined undertone Shepard had come to know and adore.
I sure as hell could have used a bit of rest time, Shepard thought, fidgeting in place restlessly. Her body was almost getting ready to get up by itself, following the yet-unsaid orders out of habit. It wasn't her place to decide. If she was needed, then she would—
"I have earned a few days, Shepard," Liara said quietly, turning her eyes down at her lap and the hand she was holding on to.
Goddamnit. When did I get this dumb? Shepard reached up to Liara's face, gently laying her hand on the curve of the asari's jaw. Her fingers lightly touched the soft skin of Liara's ridged neck, thumb brushing over the cheek inviting her to look up again. She heard a quiet sniffle as Liara still hesitated, and ducked down to seek out her lips. When they broke from the kiss, Liara was looking into her eyes with a furtive smile. Shepard laid her forehead against the asari's cooler one, staring into those sapphire pools. "Yes," she whispered, smiling as she felt the cloud of Liara's anxiety fade away from their still-shared space.
Miranda cleared her throat—a little closer to the bed by the sound of it, but Shepard's murmur of acquiescence obviously still inaudible to her. "We really are safe, Shepard. There's nothing that can't wait a day or two. Besides, despite your continued deliberate misapprehension, you only answer to the Council, anyway," she said, spitting out the word.
"It's OK," Shepard said, turning her head to the side enough to see the ever so slightly discomposed woman out of the corner of her eye and flashing her a smirk. "You're right."
"Oh. …Well, good," Miranda replied, sounding almost disappointed that there was no need to argue further.
"Alright then, Lilo, get up so I can feign. Should I snore, too? I didn't, did I?"
"Only a little," Liara replied coyly as she pushed herself off the bed and set toward the other side of the room, unconsciously straightening her outfit in a manner that, despite its casual nature, sent a flutter up Shepard's stomach.
Shepard reluctantly lay back down against the mattress, allowing it to smoothly lower itself back to its normal position. As she shifted around and settled herself prone, Miranda helped unfold the blanket and quickly tucked it in around her. Shepard couldn't help but smile at the woman's displeased expression at the hastiness of her work, the clear struggle she underwent to prevent herself fussing further with it. She quickly closed her eyes and tried to wipe her smile off as Miranda's gaze darted toward her, exactly when the chime rang again almost in concert with Liara toggling the intercom from her omni.
"Who is it?"
{Grunt.}
Shepard bit the inside of her cheek hard to prevent a grin from taking over as relief and excitement vied for dominance in her chest. She'd fought Chakwas to the very last over the doctor's insistence on keeping the badly wounded Grunt back, but eventually had to succumb to her iron will. She'd been right, of course; in his condition he would have been all but useless dirtside and they didn't have the hours it would have taken to get him upright, but still… Now, though, the pup, obviously alive and well, came with the dissolution of her terrible fear that just the Normandy making it through the battle was going to be too much to really even hope for, but—
"He looks to be alone, but stay still until we are certain," Liara, presumably now with a video feed as well, instructed quietly just before Shepard heard the blip of the lock opening and the tiny hiss of the door sliding to the side—and then the crashing footfalls and the familiar huff as the krogan bent down and turned to fit his nearly two-and-a-half meter frame through the door. He did always hate human construction…
"Lawson," Grunt said from the door in his deep rumble, powerful enough to be felt as the slightest physical vibration even a few meters away. "Liara," he continued, surprising Shepard with the almost imperceptible change she picked up in his voice, a slightly higher, softer tone betraying affection for the asari. "How is Shepard?"
Shepard shrugged out from underneath the blanket and sat up no longer withholding the grin. She'd not heard anyone else entering along with the krogan before the lock announced the door to be sealed once again, nor anything indicating an ongoing comms conversation, and wasn't surprised to see that he was indeed alone. "I'm good, Grunt," she answered with exaggerated nonchalance.
"Shepard!" the three others blurted almost at the same time, Grunt's happy bark of a greeting contrasting with startled disapproval from Liara and Miranda.
"Oh, relax, I could hear he was by hims—" Shepard managed to say before the krogan strode over and crushed her against his armor. Hot huffs of breath washed over her as she smiled into the chestplate and awkwardly liberated an arm to wrap it around his waist as far as she could reach.
"Grunt…" Miranda said warningly, "she's not quite healed up yet."
Grunt recoiled instantly, as overly cautious about human frailty as he was whenever he was reminded of it. Shepard chuckled and reached out to pull the krogan down to her level—about halfway down—by the arm. "It's OK," she said, struggling to catch both his eyes at the same time, as always, and just settled on headbutting him gently. It was a curious habit, especially as keen as the krogan were to use it in violence, but Bakara and Liara had concluded that it was likely an evolutionary adaptation similar to smiling, which had developed in many humanoids from a sign of aggression first into a gesture of appeasement and finally an expression of pleasure. Shepard didn't really care, she just knew that he responded well to it.
She let go of Grunt, taking a closer look at him as he straightened back up. He'd obtained new, slightly less heavy armor from somewhere and appeared to be mostly fine otherwise. A few new scars ran across his face and arms, a couple of chips had appeared on his plating, and he seemed to be favoring a leg. Curiously enough, she didn't see any obvious weapons on him—that was a first.
"He came looking for you on the Citadel, you know," Liara said, squeezing Grunt's arm just above the elbow as she stepped past him over to the bed. She carefully moved the tubes closer to Shepard's leg and out of the way, careful not to tug on them, and sat down at her knees.
"You did?" Shepard asked, a little flutter in her chest as Grunt nodded curtly. "Thank you…"
"There's a video and everything," Miranda supplied from the chair she'd pulled out again, ignoring the vicious glare the krogan cast at her. "Grunt's quite famous around the galaxy now."
Liara, apparently noting his growing discomfort, navigated toward a more kroganly subject but shot a meaningful sidelong glance at Shepard, inviting her to return to the issue more privately later, if she interpreted the look correctly. "He has also done an admirable job of leading the remaining krogan and representing them in the admiralty board."
Shepard found her eyes drawn to the angry-looking scar running over Liara's left cheek just below the eyelid and curving all the way up to the second fringe. She knew the asari counted them from their left, but didn't recall the name of the second one for certain. The ebelos, maybe? I'll have to ask her to show again… Liara hadn't seemed concerned about the wound earlier, but when she noticed Shepard staring, she ran her fingers across it self-consciously before quickly snatching her hand away again, finally settling on stroking Shepard's knee instead.
Grunt's hesitantly starting rumble drew Shepard's attention away from Liara, the krogan obviously more at ease with the changed topic. "…Thank you. Not easy, trying to maintain control over the remaining armies. We were significantly weakened while the cowards of the other clans survived in greater numbers. We are maybe a quarter of the original number where some others have as much as a third. With Wrex still recovering," he continued, possibly guessing the question Shepard was about to ask, "my position isn't terribly strong even amongst Urdnot. Nobody really threatens me, of course, but I spend too much of my time knocking down weaklings with aspirations. Wrex was…better at that—avoiding that. The other species are helping a little, too. Without their strong backing for Urdnot in the admiralty board, I'm not sure we could hold on to the reins."
"Sounds like you're doing quite well yourself, Grunt," Shepard said with more than a little pride for how the krogan was handling his new role, temporary or not. She was just about to ask him about Wrex—and the Normandy!—when something caught her attention.
She wasn't quite sure what she'd noticed—not even if it had been something she saw or heard. Something was subtly off in the room, she felt it clearly. Without bothering to conceal her alertness, she propped herself up better and cast her eyes around the room, but saw nothing out of the ordinary—except for Liara, Miranda, and Grunt all looking at her curiously. The translator is off, but maybe… She closed her eyes momentarily and tried to invoke the green seven-pointed star that she'd conditioned herself to visualize at will. When she reopened her eyes, the infrared–sonar visual mode had toggled on…and a quick glance around confirmed her suspicions. She grinned. "I can see you…" she said in a singsong voice.
Liara was the first to catch on and tried to follow Shepard's eyes toward the back of the room. "Kasumi…" she said plaintively.
Suddenly the shape was there, materializing as a brilliant source of heat where before only the faintest distortion of echoes and small temperature fluctuations had betrayed her presence. Shepard closed her eyes to turn the enhanced vision off again, and when she reopened them this time, the grinning thief was almost upon her. She braced for impact just as she was engulfed in another enthusiastic embrace. "Good to see you too, Kadzooks," she chuckled into the cloud of hair in her face.
"You're clearly almost fit for service! How'd you see me?" Kasumi asked when she eventually let Shepard go.
"I think it was that empty juice foil," Shepard replied, pointing at Liara's table, still not quite sure how she had known herself. "Not sure if it reflected, or was hit by a breeze when you moved, or…"
"You're getting good," Kasumi said appreciatively, and turned toward Liara. "You're so messy, T'Soni…" she said mock-scoldingly as she gave the asari a quick hug.
Shepard looked the small woman over as she greeted Miranda and Grunt in turn, shocked by the crude cybernetic struts that were quite clearly the only thing holding her left arm and right leg together despite her unconcerned manner. "What the hell happened to you?"
"You dropped a ceiling on me, lady," Kasumi answered cheerfully—and immediately hastened to amend her statement when she noticed Shepard's crestfallen expression. "Oh, come now, Shepard, I'm not blaming you! I just got hit by some debris when the Presidium started falling apart. I told you I was thinking about retiring anyway…"
Another fucking thing I need to make up for. Kasumi's assurances made Shepard feel better, but only a little. So much destruction… "You were in the Tower?"
"I was supposed to…pick up some supplies for the Crucible people, so I was at the Citadel when it got captured. Managed to avoid the husk things by hanging out in the Keeper ducts, and then eventually made my way to the Tower when it seemed like something was going on. I almost got to you, too!" she added with a hint of pride. "I didn't know it was you, of course, or anyone really, but I got to…that place where the Illusive Corpse was. The rest is…less clear, but we do have a video of it!"
Grunt let out a long-suffering growl—and Miranda stifled a chortle on the other side of the bed—causing Kasumi to turn toward the krogan towering more than half again her height above her. "Oh, you protest," Kasumi said in a husky voice as she ran her finger down Grunt's chestplate—which she had to stand on tiptoes to reach—and waggled her eyebrows in an exaggeratedly suggestive manner, "but you know you're my knight in shining armor…"
Grunt's bewildered expression was priceless, causing Shepard to burst out in a laughter raucous enough to send little twinges of pain through her abdomen and the bandages still on her face and around her chest. Liara, still by her knees, struggled between tittering and trying to give Grunt a comforting, sympathetic look. Finally, Shepard already trying to calm her breathing down to avoid tearing something up, the krogan's tension seemed to fade away and he himself barked a laugh as he nudged Kasumi's shoulder. The thief gave him a more serious one-armed hug and then, unselfconsciously, hopped on the bed next to Liara.
Noticing the expectant silence, Grunt looked around a bit uncertainly. "I only meant to come speak with Liara, really, since nobody bothered to tell me Shepard was up already," he said in what Shepard to her surprise interpreted a joking tone, "but I suppose this might as well involve everyone…especially you, Lawson, with your Cerberus history."
Shepard raised an eyebrow at that and glanced over her shoulder at Miranda who in turn was looking apprehensively at Liara.
"Grunt," Liara spoke quickly as she turned back toward the krogan, "Shepard does not really know the entire situation yet, so I am uncertain if this is the best place to start…"