Overthinking: Shepard

She tells herself a thousand times that this is a bad idea, but she still goes.

She's late. She's not very late, but she's late. She fussed over what to wear for too long. She begged Traynor for help. She put on makeup. She spent time on her hair. She didn't want anyone to recognize her.

(She was nervous. She wanted to look nice for Liara. Shut up.)

Doesn't Liara see her? Is she ignoring Shepard? Shepard knows that she deserves to be ignored, but why would Liara come at all if she planned to ignore Shepard? Isn't that sort of inefficient? Liara is pretty efficient, right? Is Shepard making that up? Is Shepard completely unable to be objective about Liara anymore?

Liara looks so…

What the hell is Shepard doing? Goddess of oceans! Some part of her sick little mind thinks that this is a date, doesn't it? This is not a date. This is Liara.

(Exactly. This is Liara, and Shepard likes her. Likes her likes her. The last time Shepard was this nervous, she was in a supply closet with Tarou Yamamoto, about to lose her— Shut up.)

Liara keeps looking past Shepard. Doesn't she…. She's leaving? She really doesn't have a clue that Shepard's here, does she? If she lets Liara go, Shepard can keep hiding. Wouldn't that be better? It's going to be miserable to spend time with Liara and try to pretend that everything is normal. Let Liara take a shuttle back to the Normandy.

She takes a deep breath and calls after Liara. Shepard is sick.

The asari perks up and looks around. She looks past Shepard again, then at her. Finally. She blinks. Shit. How bad does Shepard look in this outfit? Liara is staring. She looks disbelieving. Shit. The makeup was a bad idea. Shepard must look like a clown. Or a whore. Why is she wearing this skirt? Why did she think a skirt was important at all? Would it have been so bad if the Citadel press followed her to the ear-piercing place? What kind of do-it-before-you-die dream is getting your ears pierced? The next time she talks to Big Shepard, the admiral is going to hear about how a strict military upbringing made her daughter have a quarterlife crisis.

(Oh, goddess of oceans. Her mother! What is she going to tell her mother? How is she going to explain this? Explain Liara? What will Mom say? She's pretty levelheaded about most things, but this isn't most things. Is this even a thing? It isn't. There's nothing to explain. Shut up.)

Liara points out that Shepard is wearing a skirt. Like Shepard wouldn't notice something like that. Liara, when you wear something that causes you to almost fall down a flight of stairs, flash half the Citadel, and break your stupid face open, it's impossible not to notice it. Plus, in order to borrow it, she promised the uppity Specialist a ton of chess matches. Traynor can be insufferable sometimes. It's pretty obvious why she's having trouble finding someone to play with.

Shit, don't touch Shepard, Liara! Like breathing in this stupid, stupid skirt isn't hard enough?

(Did she just say that Shepard looks lovely? Did she mean that, or was she just trying to get Shepard to shut up? She meant it like a friend. Or like, a grandmother, maybe? 'You look lovely, dearie.' That's probably it. Liara is old enough to be Shepard's grandmother. Oh, this whole mess is so wrong. Shut up!)

See Shepard. See Shepard act like an idiot. Please stop touching her, Liara.

Oh, wait. Jokes? Are they pretending things are normal? That Shepard hasn't been acting like a complete and utter nutcase for the past week or so? Okay. That works. Look, Shepard can be normal. Sort of.

Screw it. Let's go stick needles in Shepard's ears. Who knows? Maybe all the stupid will leak out!

…

Of course the asari don't pierce their ears. They don't even have ears. Liara looks at Shepard like she's insane when she tries to explain what she wants to do. Well, it's not like Shepard could get back to Elysium and finally climb Mount Homer before she dies, could she?

HOW DOES LIARA NOT KNOW ABOUT MOUNT HOMER? What kind of information broker is she? A pretty crappy one! WHAT DOES SHE MEAN, SHE'S NEVER BEEN MOUNTAIN CLIMBING? She's a hundred and nine years old! What has she been doing all this time?

(Maybe it's good. Shepard could never love someone who didn't love mountains and mountain climbing. Not that Shepard loves Liara. Shut up.)

Liara's always wanted to go mountain climbing? Of course she has. Because she's Liara, and she's perfect. Why couldn't Liara be Kaidan? Shepard is a horrible person.

No, sorry, Shepard was listening. Mountains are her favorite thing. They'll have to go tackle Homer together someday. In a wonderful, imaginary future, where the Reapers are gone and life goes back to normal.

Shepard is babbling. Liara looks like she's going to laugh. Or worse, try to touch Shepard again! Have they always been this touchy, the two of them? No, the universe is punishing Shepard for something. Whatever it is, she's sorry already! Shepard shuts up.

When Liara meets the batarian who runs the piercing parlor, she looks decidedly suspicious. She looks at Shepard like the human has finally lost her grip on reality. Shepard laughs. For a moment, everything feels normal.

…

Shepard fainted? Oh, today just keeps getting worse and….

Whoa. Dizzy.

No one can ever… know… about…. Is that blurry blue shape Liara? Shepard recognizes that voice. Yeah, that's Liara. What's she… doing?

Okay, maybe just lying here isn't so bad.

How can someone who spends her time surrounded by computers and monitors have such calloused fingertips? Fifty years of Prothean dig sites, that's how. Are the palms of her hands calloused, too?

(What kind of question is that? Shepard knows perfectly well that Liara's hands aren't…. Oh, for—Really? Just needed an excuse to touch the asari, did you, Shepard? Goddess of—What is Shepard doing? Shut up, Shepard! Stop talking! Now! Stop talking now! Shut up, shut up!)

Liara thinks Shepard was joking. That should be a relief. It's actually disappointing. Even if it does keep everything the way it should be.

(Is this the way things should be? Of course it is. But…. No. Everything's fine like this. Shepard will get over this, eventually, and she won't have sacrificed a friendship to her incredibly fickle libido. Wait, libido? What? Shut up.)

Does Liara really not know that she's beautiful? That has to be a crime somewhere, doesn't it? Can Shepard make it a crime? She's a Spectre.

Liara, you're so beautiful that if you told Shepard that the Reapers were really on the right side of it, she'd wipe out all sentient life herself. Just on the off-chance that it would make you smile. Except that you're not just beautiful, you're a beautiful person. You'd never want to think that Shepard hurt anyone because of something you said. Unless they deserved it, or were threatening innocent people, or something. It would be hard to secretly get rid of all sentient life, but Shepard would figure out a way. It would take her whole lifetime, because, let's face it, Shepard has never been the brightest star in the galaxy, but she'd find a way.

This whole thing is getting away from the commander.

Liara, everything about you is so beautiful that when you're around, Shepard doesn't even care that she can't think straight.

(Think 'straight,' ha! Good one! Shut up.)

Author's Note: As always, thanks for sticking with me and my thick-headed Shepard. I'm approaching the biggest assessment of my professional life, so updates are probably going to slow somewhat, though I'll do my best to keep them steadily coming.

On a completely different note: apparently 'Pressure' caught the notice of people from the Bioware Social Network's Liara Support Thread! (And not in a pitchforks and torches kind of way, either!) Needless to say I was wicked flattered to find this out! If you're coming to this story from the BSN, welcome! Hopefully I'm doing Liara justice.