Chapter 36. Concupiscentiam

Despite the welcome solitude of the medbay, Liara felt no more rested by the time she emerged. Her eyes felt raw and heavy, as though she'd scrubbed them with a handful of sand. Her feet felt leaden, her stomach cramped and empty. She'd vented her grief until she was too exhausted to think, and in the end nothing had changed. Benezia was still dead. Saren was still out there.

Time to stop grieving and decide what to do.

Her official role with the Normandy was finished, and it had ended in failure. She had not been able to lead them to the conduit. She had not been able to talk down her mother. Even her attempts to help Shepard make sense of the cipher had been met with questionable success. Her knowledge of the protheans, once so important to her, seemed woefully inadequate in the wake of what they were up against, and despite her skill with biotics her lack of weapons training made her a liability. As much as it would pain her, if Shepard no longer had use for her she would not be surprised.

And she would be lost. The discovery of the reapers had rendered her life's work irrelevant. The prothean extinction was no longer a mystery but a terror lurking in the present, one that maybe she could do something about. For years she had cared more about the dead than she had the living, and it had cost her everything. She could not go back, even if she wanted to.

Not to mention the simple truth that she didn't want to go.

Her gaze slid to the door of Shepard's quarters.

She could not shake him. So much lay behind the ice blue mirror of his eyes, so much that no one else knew, that she had only glimpsed.

(We can close it together)

He'd trusted her with the memory of his pain, his agony. Whether it was trust given out of desire or necessity she wasn't sure, but she was certain it was something he guarded more closely than his life. Giving anyone, anyone, a glimpse at that kind of vulnerability went against everything he stood for.

And in her grief, she had isolated one of those barbs of insecurity and speared him with it.

Isn't that the kind of thinking that lead Saren astray?

She didn't even know if it was a fear he had consciously acknowledged, but it had been lurking there in his mind all the same: the possibility that he and Saren were somehow shaped from the same clay. The very thought made her ache.

Leaving him, leaving this ship, was out of the question. She simply had to find a way to prove it. With one last, long glance at Shepard's door she pivoted sharply on her heel, heading away from the mess and towards the elevator. Since coming aboard the Normandy she'd placed her fate in the hands of others.

Not anymore.

Wrex's shotgun discharged with a boom, simulated slug disintegrating the holographic rachni with a satisfying scatter of light. The krogan's scaly lips pulled back in a grin as a small tremor of pain ran through his ribs from the kick of the weapon against his shoulder. A small trickle of blood dripped down his chest where he'd ripped the synthetic skin grafted over his rachni burns. The doctor had warned him not to tax the weak dermal attachment, but she underestimated a krogan's regenerative abilities.

Besides, he enjoyed the pain. Pain let you know you weren't dead yet.

He programmed the simulation with the quarians' thermite rounds, reset the target and fired again. The armor depleted with a fiery hiss, but according to the targeting feedback, the shrapnel didn't fully penetrate the kinetic padding quite like he'd hoped.

"Buchok," he muttered under his breath.

"Problems?"

Wrex glanced up as Garrus hauled himself out of the Mako's hold, diagnostic kit gripped in his talons. In the dim room his visor cast a sharp, purple glow.

"The phasic envelope isn't effective enough. If I can't kill it before maxing the heat sinks, what good is it?"

Garrus tilted his head. "It worked well enough against the rachni."

"The rachni didn't have shields."

"See if Tali can help." Garrus dropped to the ground, hissing softy through his teeth and rubbing his left thigh with a talon. He rooted around through a box of tools, selected what he wanted and climbed into the tank once more.

Wrex watched him, eyes narrowed. He'd done well enough on Noveria. For a turian. Not many would have survived the numbers they'd faced. The rachni alone had been formidable. Rachni and asari commandos had been downright fun. And though Garrus had complained from the moment the first asari had appeared in the anteroom until the last one fell, he'd calmly and methodically seen to his task, expertly choosing his targets to give Wrex opportunities for CQC where he could do the most damage. Rarely, in fact, had Wrex found himself in battle with a more capable ally.

Not to mention the particular pleasure the turian had taken in killing Alestia Iallis, the asari who had eluded them in the barracks of Peak 15. She'd gotten away from them once, and Garrus hadn't been about to let her do it again.

So maybe, just maybe, the kid was coming around.

Wrex pulled up the ammo schematics on his omnitool, red eyes scanning the velocity values, impact force and effectiveness of the thermite coating. He lacked the quarian's skill with software modification, but when it came to weapons, krogan weren't as dumb as they looked. He began poking through the code with blunt fingers, looking for possible enhancements. As he worked his ears paid careful attention to light footfalls behind him, padding cautiously across the cargo bay before coming to a hesitant halt within the shadows.

After inputting some minor tweaks he hefted the rifle once more and squeezed the trigger, this time roaring at the searing shock of pain across his chest. The roar dissolved into a deep chortle as he set the rifle down and examined the targeting data. Better. Still room for improvement. But to coax more out of the shot he might actually need to accost the quarian.

"How long are you going to hide back there, Liara," he asked finally.

He heard the shuffle of footsteps, followed by Liara's sheepish face appearing to the left of his shoulder. "I didn't think I was loud enough to disturb you."

"I hear everything," he replied. Then, after a pause, "You aren't disturbing me." He reached for the shotgun again. As she watched he reloaded and fired, reloaded and fired, eyes never leaving the barrel of the gun. For a long while she said nothing. Wrex thought he had an inkling of what was on her mind, but rather than prod decided to let her come around to it in her own time. She'd earned that, at least in his eyes. Killing your own blood wasn't easy.

When she did finally speak, he wasn't surprised by the question, even if it deflected from her real purpose.

"Wrex…would you tell me about your father?"

Wrex examined his rifle. Something in the targeting software seemed amiss. The last three shots had been slightly off. "Not much to tell. I wanted a better future for the krogan. He didn't. I won the battle, but he won the argument. I gave up on my people and moved on. If they're so dead set on killing themselves, who am I to stop them?"

"What happened?"

Wrex bared his teeth slightly. "We had different ideas about the viability of survival in the face of the genophage. I wanted to unite the clans, focus on breeding. Why spend time and effort on battle and conquest when you aren't strong enough to hold onto it anyway?"

"That makes sense to me."

"Of course it does," he said with a grunt. "You're a smart girl."

She flushed.

"But that…approach went against our nature. Krogan like to fight. If we don't have an enemy we find one in ourselves. I thought I could bring them around to my way of thinking."

"And you were wrong," she surmised.

He nodded curtly. "My father brought the clans together for a crush. A meeting. We met in the Hallows, one of the few places my people actually deem sacred. No blood has ever been shed there. All I wanted to do was talk."

"I take it that's not what happened," she said softly.

"No."

Liara nodded, her gaze wandering elsewhere. Though she said nothing her brow furrowed with deep thought. The slow, careful consideration she gave to the obstacles in her path was one thing he liked about her. It was a refreshing change from his own people.

"Do you ever regret it?" she asked. "Leaving, I mean?"

His lip curled, and for a moment he turned his attention back to the shotgun. The targeting system diagnostic results confirmed his assumptions that a calibration was off somewhere.

"Tuchanka is a radioactive pile of rocks," he said finally. "Whatever glory my people had before the salarians uplifted us is long past. The galaxy sees us as primitive heathens hardly better than vorcha. That will never change unless we make it change, and there aren't enough of us who care. There's nothing to miss, except things that no longer exist." A low growl rose up from his throat. "But being here does make me…wonder. It's been a long time since I've been around someone so hell bent on directing the fate of the galaxy that the galaxy actually listens."

"You mean Shepard," she said softly. He nodded, watching her out of his periphery. After a moment, he trudged over to the weapons locker and dug around for a pistol, eventually coming away with a Brawler. He ejected the ammo block, instead linking the weapon's microcomputer to the targeting simulation, and thrust it into her hands.

"Some of the greatest adversaries I've ever faced were asari," he informed her. "And you have more skill than most. But they had one thing you don't."

"Aim," she replied. "I know. That's why I came."

Wrex eyed her with cold, careful calculation. "You realize that when it comes to marksmanship, you're better off talking to Shepard. Or the turian."

"I would rather Shepard not know. Not yet." Liara turned the weapon over in her hands. "This must seem so silly to you."

Wrex raised his shotgun once more and fired, causing the asari to jump. "Your first lesson is to stop giving a damn what someone else thinks. Why do you want to be a better warrior? To please Shepard, or to conquer your enemy and spit on his corpse?"

Her eyes widened a little, but before she could reply the Mako's hatch opened once more, revealing a turian crest. "Hey, Wrex, have you seen Dubyan—Oh. Liara. How…how are you?"

A blush burned her cheeks. "Fine. I am sorry, I did not know you were here."

"Hiding from Dr. Chakwas," Garrus replied, gingerly lifting himself out of the tank once more. "According to her, Wrex and I are not good patients."

Wrex snorted.

Liara glanced between the two of them. "Perhaps this is not a good time."

"Time for what?" the turian asked, wiping his hands as he hit the ground and walked towards them, a noticeable hitch in his step.

Wrex nodded towards the pistol. "Liara wants to learn how to kill."

Garrus replaced his tools, a hum running through his subvocals. "Seems to me she has a pretty good handle on that. I can think of a few rachni who'd agree."

"With bullets," the krogan informed him.

"Oh, that." His mandibles flared slightly, his expression contemplative. He headed for his weapons' locker. "I think I have a pistol in here somewhere. I might even remember how to fire it."

Wrex uttered a disgusted sigh. "The one turian in the galaxy who thinks he's funny." He stomped over to the target emitter's small control console and called up the projection of a geth trooper, disabling movement so it remained stationary, and pointed.

"Kill it."

Liara drew in a deep breath and held the pistol up, sighting down the barrel to the orb of the geth's so-called face.

"Don't squint," Wrex told her.

"Lower your elbows," Garrus offered.

She fired off a round. The gun kicked against her hand and her shoulder jerked in surprise. The shot went wide, missing the target completely and smashing into the surrounding kinetic padding.

"Congratulations," Wrex gruffed. "Your enemy didn't even have to dodge."

"Wrex," Garrus warned.

"I doubt Saren will coddle her any more than her own mother did," the krogan replied, and Liara flinched. Good. "Again."

Her grip tightened, corners of her mouth turning down in a scowl. This time her shoulders tensed, anticipating the kick, and she hit the trigger twice more. One bullet hit high and to the left, the hologram rippling around the geth's shoulder.

"Well," Garrus said. "That's a start."

Wrex narrowed his eyes. "You're an asari. You depend on stealth and speed to survive. Think slow, act fast. The gun isn't a tool. It's an extension of your arm, just like the biotics."

She gave him a quick glance over her shoulder, surprise on her features. Wrex gruffed.

"What, you think krogan attack blind? I know how you fight because I know how to kill you, and Saren does too."

Liara nodded, lips pressing together in a thin line of determination. "Wrex, for what it's worth, I think you would make an impressive leader of your people."

"That time is long past," he retorted, and pointed to the target. "Focus on now."

She fired again. And again, until she rubbed her shoulder and set the gun down in frustration. "I'm sorry," she said.

"Don't be sorry," he growled. "Win."

With an unhappy nod she picked the pistol up once more, but before she resumed firing she gave him a pointed, almost accusing look. "That is a sentiment you should consider for yourself, you know."

A low rumble resonated in his vocal chords and he jabbed an angry finger towards the target. "Again!"

Kaidan scanned the CIC, trying to suppress his irritation. He'd put off the inventory for as long as possible, but now that he couldn't afford to wait any longer to confront Ashley he couldn't figure out where the hell she was. While after this morning he would be perfectly happy doing armory inventory on his own, he had no idea which server she'd stored the manifest on.

Pressly gave him nothing more than a distracted shrug as he moved from console to console around the galaxy map, barking orders to the other crew members on duty, anxious for telemetry on a newly launched probe.

Addison Chase passed by as Kaidan thumped a datapad against his thigh in frustration. "Joker called her to the conference room a while ago. Have you checked there?"

"No," he said, forehead wrinkling in surprise. "Thanks, Chase, I'll check it out."

She smiled and continued towards the stairwell as Kaidan swung behind the stanchion between the conference room and the CIC. When the doors parted he heard a peal of laughter that sounded far too much like a giggle to have come from Ashley Williams. But that's who stood alone in the center of the circular room.

On the viewscreen he saw the image of two girls, both younger than Ashley but bearing an uncanny resemblance. The older one had her rich, brown hair, shorter than Ashley's but just as thick and unruly, with several strands that had escaped her ponytail loosely framing her face. The second girl, younger, shared her nose, her cheekbones, and most importantly her unrepentant smirk.

That smirk deepened when she spotted Kaidan, and with a snicker she whispered something to Ashley, sneaking a not-so-subtle look in his direction when she was done. The gunnery chief glanced swiftly over her shoulder, but instead of the irritated scowl he expected she gave him an almost guilty, sheepish look.

The older sister offered Kaidan an innocent smile, which he cautiously returned. If Ashley was any indication, there was nothing innocent about anyone with the last name Williams.

She cleared her throat, turning back to the screen. "I think the LT barged in here to inform me I need to get my ass back to work," she said loudly.

The younger sister's mouth twisted a little. "When do you get your next leave?"

Ashley exhaled. "Don't think you want to know the answer to that question, kiddo. This post is a little different from Eden Prime. But I love you guys, hear me? Tell Abby I'm sorry I missed her. And give Mom a giant hug, okay? Sara, if I find out you dropped that literature class I'll come all the way back to Earth just to kick your butt."

Sara, the older sister, heaved an overly dramatic sigh. "It's boring, Ash. Old, dead white guys are boring."

Ashley planted her hands on her hips, a stance that he had come to recognize meant you were about to learn every single way in which she thought you were wrong, and the list wasn't short.

"Yeah, well. Shakespeare may be an old, dead white guy, but see if you can write something people still read hundreds of years later."

"Yeah, about guys who are a little too into their own mothers."

Ashley grinned. "You do know he wrote more than just Hamlet, right?"

"So you keep saying."

"Love you two."

"Love you, too, sis. Remember what I said."

All three Williams women directed their gazes towards Kaidan, who straightened in surprise.

"I will," she said, turning back to the screen.

"Stay safe."

"I always do."

She reached a tentative hand to the console, allowing it to hover for an extra moment before disconnecting the signal. When the screen went dark she leaned on the console with her hands, shoulders slumping a little as her head dropped and her sides heaved with a quick sigh. When she turned around her expression was carefully blank.

"Sorry," he said, shuffling his feet a little. "I didn't mean to, uh, interrupt."

She folded her arms across her chest, leaning back against the console below the viewscreen with a wary expression.

He shifted his feet some more, back of his neck burning. "Ash, look, I want to apo—"

She held a hand up. "Alenko. It's fine."

"You know I would never—"

"Alenko." She put a hand on his arm. "Don't worry about it."

"Right," he muttered, eyes drifting to her hand. Swiftly she let go and took a step back, clearing her throat.

"So uh, I'm guessing you need me for something."

Kaidan held up a datapad, unable to shake his feeling of guilt. "Weapons inventory? I can't find the manifest you made after Therum." He chuckled. "Figuring out where the hell you store your paperwork is about as easy as getting Joker to even bother with his in the first place."

She crossed her arms. He braced himself for the inevitable outburst, not trusting their fragile peace, but instead all she did was smirk. "You're such a control freak. I bet you hang all your shirts according to color and sleeve length, too."

"And I bet all yours get stuffed in your locker any way they'll fit."

"With my drill sergeant? Hell, no, Alenko. You find a wrinkle in my uniform and I'll clean your pistol for a month."

"Deal."

"Easy money. Here." She turned back to the console and called up the file system used by the cargo bay. "I keep the manifest here. No one actually understands my shorthand, so you probably overlooked it."

He came up behind her, hesitated, then leaned in to look over her shoulder. He could smell faint traces of her shampoo and caught the scent of coffee still on her breath. When he forced his concentration back to the screen in front of her, he laughed.

"Well, of course I overlooked it. How the hell am I supposed to guess that sniasshopi has anything to do with our arsenal?"

"Snipers, assault rifles, shotguns, pistols," she recited, casting a quick glance over her shoulder. "In order of quantity on board, from least to most. Who knew so many of us liked shotguns?" At the sight of his bewildered look she nudged him in the chest with her shoulder. "Still think I don't iron my shirts?"

"No. I think you just have no idea how to save important things where other people can find them. Do I even want to know how you named the armor manifest?"

She put a finger to her chin. "I think I was a little annoyed about getting knocked around on Therum, so I called that one Sirta Foundation Can Bite My Ass."

"Oh, of course. How could I have missed that." He shifted his weight and bumped her with his knee, muttering an apology under his breath. "So what was your Noveria report? Assuming you've done one, that is."

"Check the timestamp, biotic boy. Pretty sure mine made it in before yours." She ducked her head. "But I may have called it something along the lines of I Shot the Sheriff."

Kaidan gave her a blank stare.

"Really? You don't know Bob Marley?"

He shook his head.

She sighed. "Neither did Shepard. He didn't find it nearly as amusing as I did."

Kaidan snickered in spite of himself. In his periphery he could see her grin. When she shifted her feet he became acutely aware of how close he was to her. Quickly he took a step back, making an awkward sound in his throat as he did so. For a moment they skimmed the weapons manifest in relative silence.

"You're cute when you do that, you know."

He glanced at her in confusion, realized she'd stopped working to watch him. "Do what?"

"Think too hard." She reached up and gave him a gentle push to the forehead.

He reached up and caught her hand, his irritation at her…inconsistency finally getting the better of him. How the hell could she just act like everything was fine?

"Ash, I really think we should talk about what hap—"

She groaned in frustration. "Why. Why can't you just leave well enough alone?"

"Because your mixed messages make me paranoid as hell," he blurted out.

Her eyes widened in surprise, but not from his outburst. When he followed her gaze he noticed that though he'd had ample opportunity, he hadn't let go of her hand. His breath caught in his throat. For a split second he saw something in her eyes that made his heart pound.

Somewhere in the back of his mind he heard a voice whispering, don't, for a million reasons he'd already rehearsed in his head. It was inappropriate. He was an officer. She was enlisted. And even if that wasn't the case, the simple fact remained that she just…wasn't his type. She was hotheaded and outspoken, to the point of unabashedly insulting at times. Not to mention indifferent to the consequences of anything she did, assuming they even occurred to her in the first place.

She was the person who wandered the Presidium after being ordered to stay put. The soldier who charged back into the lines of an unknown enemy after watching them slaughter her own men. Who risked her life for people she'd just met, trusted him to diffuse a bomb after knowing him less than an hour.

She was the friend who'd sat with him through a migraine, and laughed even when he wasn't funny. The woman who would look damned good in a dress, and probably even better out of it. And the one, who what felt like eons ago, had taken him by the arm and dragged him off to a kiosk on the Presidium for a pair of neon green boots.

Live a little, she'd said.

So he did.

As if some unseen barrier between them had suddenly snapped their lips crushed together in a sudden rush of heat. He inhaled sharply, the coffee he'd smelled on her breath now running across his tongue. Before he could stop himself he was kissing her back, emphatically, teeth clacking in his hurry to taste more of her, the suddenness of it overriding any caution barring his way.

The moment she started to pull back he tightened his grip on her wrist, tugging her fully into his arms. Her lips were soft, so much softer than he imagined, though the thought that the caustic comments that regularly fell out of her mouth could somehow affect their texture nearly made him laugh.

Her pulse raced beneath his fingers where they still held her by the wrist. A soft moan vibrated through her throat as she twisted her body to draw his hand to her hip with one hand, fingers of her other sliding across his scalp in a way that set his entire body on fire.

At the sound of his sharp inhale she pulled abruptly away, gasping a little. This close he could see the sudden fear and doubt reflecting off the rich brown of her irises, hand kneading anxiously through his hair.

"Ok," she said, breathless. "So that—"

Don't think. If you think, you'll stop.

It needed to stop. He knew it needed to stop. But he wasn't ready.

He hooked a hand around the base of her neck and pulled her back to him, pressing into her mouth until he thought they might both drown. Briefly she stiffened against him, not expecting the aggression. But she got over her surprise quickly, leaning into him and parting his lips with her tongue. One hand slid its way up his spine, clawing at the fabric of his shirt as he drew her in even closer.

A groan rumbled low in his throat as she broke free to catch her breath. Her eyes were dark and heavy but smiling as she leaned in to kiss him again, her laughter echoing into his mouth and sending a wave of fresh heat rippling through his skin. He ran his hand along the inward curve of her side and back down to her hip, which she thrust against him in a way that was too much, too fast, but the jolt of pleasure that it brought him made it hard to care.

This time he pulled away, turning his lips to the hollow of her neck and kissing up and down until he drew a small keen of delight from her throat. Both of her hands flew to his back, tugging at his uniform, tentatively at first but then a little more insistently, until the warning bells that had been ringing in his head finally got too loud to ignore.

"Wait," he breathed, pulling back and catching one of her hands. "Ash—wait."

She leaned her forehead against his, breath coming in short, quick gasps. "I think you're the one who ran past go on this one, LT."

He chuckled softly, smoothing back an errant strand of her hair with his hand. "You're…surprisingly hard to resist."

"Then don't."

But when she made to lean towards him again he tightened his grip on her hand, stopping her just before their lips met. She made a frustrated sound that weakened his resolve a little, but not enough.

"Come on, LT. Tell me you haven't thought about this."

He took her by the shoulders, thumbs rubbing in gentle circles, wanting nothing more than to say the hell with it. Instead he closed his eyes and exhaled. "Thinking's not the same as doing."

"Dammit, Kaidan. Don't go all officer on me now."

Now he did back away. Ashley folded her hands snug across her chest and stared at the ground.

"You're right," he said. "I've thought about it. But this is…fast. Way, way too fast. I'm not..." He sighed. "I'm not the type who does…this. I don't look for one night stands."

A hard edge entered her eyes. "And you assume that's all I'm in for?"

"No," he said quickly. "No. Or, at least. I hope not. But that's my point. Before we break regs. Risk the safety of our colleagues. And before I take advantage of a junior officer. Shouldn't we…talk about this?"

"Kaidan Alenko," she said softly. "Always looking for the sure thing. Everything needs to be perfectly defined and spelled out for you, doesn't it? Sometimes the unknown can be a little exciting, too."

He bristled a little, shoulders tightening, expression darkening. "What you see as exciting I see as something that could destroy our careers and endanger the mission. You don't have to worry about what it looks like for a superior officer to…fraternize with someone under their command."

"Don't bring rank into this."

"It's not something we can just overlook!"

Her eyes flashed and he braced himself for whatever retort she was about to hurl at him, but her shoulders slumped as her anger fled in a sudden, unexpected rush. "Are you sure? 'Cause I think I'm willing to overlook it."

Against his better judgment he reached up and caressed her cheek. "I'd be lying if I said it wasn't…really damned tempting."

"If you say 'but,' I'm going to hit you."

"But."

She gave him a halfhearted thwack on the shoulder that brought a small, regretful smile to his face.

"We should think about it," he said, as much trying to convince himself as he was her. "Maybe once all this is behind us we can…I don't know. Re-evaluate. See where things stand."

"Yeah," she said after a long pause. "And later if we come to our senses, no hard feelings, right? We just continue on and pretend this never happened."

His hand quivered. Instead of answering he stepped in and kissed her one more time, this time long, slow and deliberate. Ashley inhaled, a sound that was full and deep and filled with regret. He felt her hand splay flat on his chest, gently pushing him backwards. The look on her face dropped his heart to his feet.

"Maybe next time then, huh? Catch you later, LT. Don't sweat the manifest. I'll take care of it."

He watched her trudge up the ramp in silence, wincing when the door slid shut behind her. In the silence that ensued he let out a long breath he didn't realize he'd been holding, then sat down in one of the empty chairs.

"Dammit."

Liara resisted the urge to fling the pistol at the wall and just walk away. Her two instructors seemed equally annoyed, Wrex reducing himself to growls and short, barked orders, while Garrus attacked the problem as though it were a simple algorithm he just hadn't figured out yet.

"Here," he said, pulling off his visor and offering it to her. "Try this. It's programmed for my rifle, but it shouldn't have any trouble syncing with the pistol."

Hesitantly she reached out and took it, settling it on her head so the purple eyepiece covered her left eye. Immediately feeds of data scrolled across her vision. Thermal signatures, targeting trajectories…she could read Garrus' body temperature, see the shuddering double beat of Wrex's twin hearts. The sheer volume of available data was so overwhelming she felt momentarily dizzy.

"Is this what you see…all the time?" she asked.

"Great isn't it?" he said with an almost happy sigh. "I can't remember the last time I walked into a room without knowing every open sightline and the exact vector and velocity needed for a clean headshot."

Not to mention the quickening respiration that would betray whether someone was afraid, the elevated adrenal levels as someone fought for their life…Liara imagined pulling the trigger and watching her victim's heart shatter in an explosion of thermal heat, shuddered and pulled the headpiece off. "I appreciate the gesture, but I don't think this is for me." The turian took it back from her, one mandible flicking swiftly outward before pulling tight to his jaw.

She picked the gun up again with a sigh, took aim, again, and missed, again.

"I'm sorry," she said, biting back her disappointment and frustration. "Maybe I'm not cut out for this."

"It just takes practice."

She whirled at the sound of Shepard's voice, eyes widening when she spotted him leaning against one of the cargo bay support pillars, watching them with an unreadable expression.

"Shepard," she stammered, setting the pistol down like it had just burned her hand. "I didn't see you there."

"I'm getting that a lot today," he said. "I didn't want to interrupt." His eyes never once left her face as he pushed himself off the pillar and walked towards them. "Garrus? Wrex? Dr. Chakwas is hunting for you two, I believe."

Garrus' plates tightened. "That woman is way too fond of needles, Commander."

"If I had to sit through the bone knitter, you have to suffer your own torture."

The two of them mumbled something before reluctantly trudging towards the elevator, Garrus with a slightly exaggerated limp. Shepard's lips quirked in a slight smile as they muttered to one another until they were out of earshot.

"Two of the fiercest warriors in the galaxy when facing a foe, yet infantile when faced with modern medicine," he remarked. "Go figure."

Liara elected not to comment on Shepard's feelings towards the bone knitter. Instead her fingers brushed across the grip of the pistol. "And yet I seem to be the reverse."

Shepard shook his head. "No you're not, Liara. Don't sell yourself short. It takes more than a few practice sessions to become a good marksman." He picked up the Brawler, briefly brushing against her hand. "I'm guessing you and this pistol don't get along too well. You had a Kessler before, correct?"

She nodded.

"Got along with it a little better?"

"Maybe," she said with a sigh and exasperated toss of her hand. "One miss is the same as another, I suppose." She made a noise of disgust in her throat.

Shepard said nothing, merely went back to the weapons locker and dug around for a few moments before coming away with another pistol stamped Haliat Armory. "Stiletto," he told her. "Doesn't hit quite as hard as the Brawler, but it's better than the Kessler and kicks less. Higher rate of fire, too." The same small smile returned. "So it's a little more forgiving if you don't have Garrus' aim."

"Or yours."

She didn't mean for there to be a note of accusation in her voice, but his smile faded instantly, any trace of warmth replaced with the blank, inscrutable mask she'd seen him use with the colonists on Feros.

He placed the gun in her hands, avoiding her eyes. As she wrapped her fingers around the grip he came around behind her, reaching down the length of her arms and clasping his hands gently over hers to raise the gun. He leaned forward until his head drew level with hers. When his cheek brushed hers she felt the prickle of the hair stubble growing there, a rough but not unwelcome texture. She had not stood this close to him since the meld.

"Take a deep breath," he told her. "Relax your shoulders."

Liara inhaled, resenting the quiver that ran through her body. The warmth of his chest against her back made it very, very hard to relax. She rolled her shoulders.

"Exhale before you pull the trigger," he said. "That's a trick you can use to flush some of your tension, make it a little easier to line up the shot."

Liara hooked her finger around the trigger and let out a long, slow breath, distantly aware that Shepard did the same. The slug roared out of the barrel and hit the target, low and in a non-vital area but still hitting, which was at least some small improvement.

He let go of her hands and stepped back. The sudden withdrawal of heat pulled a ghost of air against her that brought on a shiver.

"See?" he said. "It just takes practice."

She set the pistol down, nervously wiping her hands on her tunic. "Shepard—"

"I'm sorry," he said, his voice so quiet and small it sounded more like an echo. His eyes shone a fervent blue even in the dim light. "I wanted to save her."

"You could not have," Liara said, her own voice catching in her throat. She twined her fingers together to hide the tremble in her hands. "Benezia was lost long before we arrived. I know that now. It is just…going to take some time to accept." Her eyes flicked down to her feet, then back up. "You should not have had to be the one. I was her daughter. It was my responsibility."

Slowly he shook his head. "You don't want that on your conscience. Believe me, Liara. I'd rather you hate me for the rest of your life than have to live with being the one responsible for her death."

Tears stung the corners of her eyes. "You were right, Shepard. I'm not a soldier. I'm not sure I belong here. I've done what you brought me here to do. I don't know what else I have to offer you. I've been compiling a database of prothean locations that might be of help—"

"Liara."

"—though without much more to go on it is frustratingly vague. I've requested copies of all of my old notes and my dissertation from the university to see if it might shed some light—"

"Liara."

"—in case there is something I have missed or forgotten, but—"

He caught her chin with the tip of his finger, meeting her gaze with those deep blue wells that had found her on Therum. She took a deep breath. "What I mean to say is, if you do not need me on the Normandy any longer…I will not blame you."

Shepard let her go, eyes flicking briefly away. "Do you want to go?"

She shook her head. Just don't ask me if it's for the right reasons, she pleaded silently.

"I need you here," he said, then reached out suddenly and closed his fingers over her hands, squeezing tightly. If Garrus had been in the room with his visor, he would have seen her heart rate skyrocket. "I…want you here."

Her voice locked in her throat as she tried to pay attention to something other than the feel of his hands. Warm, so warm…did all human skin feel as smooth and warm as this? His expression, so closed just minutes ago, now radiated something open and vulnerable, as though a simple touch of his hand had reopened the link between them.

But before she could reply she was interrupted by the echo of voices from the direction of engineering. Instantly Shepard dropped his hands, the vulnerability vanishing as abruptly as it had appeared. Engineer Adams and Navigator Pressly headed up the ramp from engineering to the left of the elevator, deep in conversation. Shepard spared her one last glance before reluctantly pulling away and calling out to his XO.

"Pressly! Hang on. I need a moment."

"Sure thing, Commander."

Liara watched Shepard's retreating back, mind a whirlwind of thoughts she wasn't quite prepared to sort through yet. When he was safely on the other side of the cargo bay she drew in a shaky breath. Shifted her gaze to the pistol sitting on the bench. Picked it up, and reset the target.