This chapter is pretty much all fluff, but the next few aren't going to be and I'm already dreading writing them. Enjoy!
"Goddess, I can't let you out of my sight for five minutes without you getting hurt somehow," Liara teased Shepard as she helped the Spectre out of her armor.
"At least I'm not bleeding," Shepard offered. "Just a few bruises… didn't see that Prime until it was on top of me." The first stop of their mission to eliminate Geth pockets had gone rather smoothly, all things considered. Minor injuries for her, nothing for Garrus or Ash, and they'd been able to destroy the entire stronghold that the Geth were holed up in.
Liara snorted softly, a habit she'd picked up from her commander, and turned to stow the last few pieces of armor into one of the lockers that they'd moved into Shepard's- their- quarters so they weren't constantly gearing up in the middle of the mess. Shepard unzipped her compression suit, and Liara reached up to the commander's shoulders and carefully slid it off, pulling it down to her waist-
"Krae," she hissed in admonishment, and Shepard winced. "This is not a few bruises." She shook her head as she surveyed the purple, blue, yellow and green bruising that encompassed the commander's entire back, broken up only by the scar tissue caused by acid burns from her encounter with a thresher maw on Akuze. "It looks like you got hit by the Mako."
Shepard cringed. "Just the wall. Like I said, didn't see the Prime until it was too late." She looked back over her shoulder, offering Liara a sheepish grin. "I'm all right, just gonna be sore for a few days."
Liara sighed, rummaging in a drawer for the bottle of liniment that she'd started keeping handy for this exact reason, but Shepard stopped her. "Shower first," she murmured, leaning down to kiss Liara before shucking her suit off the rest of the way and heading into the bathroom. Liara heard the shower turn on, and then Shepard's head poked back into the doorway, her helmet-tousled hair sticking straight up. "You coming?" she asked hopefully.
Liara rolled her eyes in mock exasperation but was already kicking off her boots and unzipping her lab coat. "You're incorrigible," she accused, the smile on her face belying the rebuke of her words. Shepard only grinned in response, disappearing back into the bathroom as Liara made her way across the room to join her, shedding her clothes as she went.
Shepard nudged the temperature control down as Liara stepped in to join her, knowing that the scalding temperature she normally preferred was too hot for the asari, and opened her arms. Liara stepped into them, and for a moment the two of them just stood there, pressed together, letting the water run over them. Liara reached up to wrap her arms around Shepard's neck, one hand finding its way into the commander's hair, and rocked up onto her toes to press their lips together. She teased Shepard's lips with her tongue and was rewarded when Shepard opened her mouth, deepening their kiss. One of the Spectre's arms moved to Liara's waist, pulling the asari more snugly against the human's lithe form.
Liara's free hand dropped from around Shepard's neck and her hand roamed, finding place after place on Shepard's body that she'd memorized, reassuring herself that the commander was whole. A sense of unexpected desperation began clawing its way up from her stomach, and she tightened her grip on Shepard. Tears suddenly stung her eyes and she pushed the Spectre back against the wall, immediately regretting it when Shepard hissed as her bruised back hit the cold metal. Liara pulled back, opening her mouth to apologize, but Shepard just smiled gently at her and pulled her back into her arms, gently stroking her back.
"Hey, it's ok, I'm here" the commander soothed her, her other hand moving up underneath Liara's crest to lightly caress the sensitive nerves there. "I've come back in worse shape. I'm ok."
"How many times will it take until you're not?" The whispered words came to Liara's lips unbidden, and she felt a small sense of relief as she voiced the concern she'd been hiding for a while. She looked up at Shepard, her tears mingling with the water cascading down on them from the shower. "All it would take is one well-placed bullet, one hit that makes you land the wrong way…"
"Oh, sweetheart." Shepard leaned down, kissing the tears from the corners of Liara's eyes. "I can't promise that I'm never going to get hurt, you know that. What I can promise you is that I will always fight like hell to make it back to you, whether I'm hurt or not, because…" She trailed off, taking a deep breath. "Because I love you, Liara," she murmured softly, putting sound to the words she'd been thinking for so long.
Liara's breath caught in her throat and her eyes met Shepard's. She felt like she could drown in the depths of them, in the affection and sincerity that she saw there. "I love you too," she whispered back, rewarded by the wide smile that threatened to split Shepard's face in half. And then Shepard's mouth was covering hers again, and she was drowning, adrift in the feelings they both shared so deeply. She let out a faint mew of disappointment when Shepard pulled away from her to turn the water off and snag some towels, though that feeling didn't last long as the commander promptly took one of them and began toweling the water from Liara. Shepard lingered in all the right places, and by the time she was dry Liara felt as if she could just melt into a puddle on the floor.
Thankfully, Shepard made quick work of drying herself off, and scooped Liara into her arms to carry her over to the bed. She laid the asari down on the bed gently before moving onto it herself. Reverently, she trailed a path of kisses up Liara's body, starting at her stomach, lavishing attention onto both of her breasts, ghosting over the spot on her neck that the commander knew drove her crazy, before finally covering the blue body with her own and claiming her mouth yet again. When she felt Liara's consciousness brush against hers she opened her mind and fell into the meld without hesitation or reservation, wanting, needing to share everything she felt, everything she was with the person she'd fallen so deeply in love with.
The Normandy, the cabin, and even the bed faded away from them as they fell into each other, into a private galaxy of their own creation. Here, there was nothing but the two of them, and even the line dividing their souls into two separate beings began to blur. Audible words were no longer necessary, and truth be told neither one of them would have been capable of speech anyway.
I love you. I love you so fucking much.
Goddess, I love you too.
You're everything to me.
Stay here. Stay with me.
Always. I'll always come back to you.
Want more of you… Need…
With a jolt that left them both gasping for breath, Liara pulled them nearly the whole way out of the meld. Shepard shook her head and blinked a few times before looking down at her in confusion. "What's wrong? Liara?"
"Nothing. Nothing's wrong," Liara promised her, reaching up to lay a hand against Shepard's cheek. "It's just… If I take the meld any deeper, it… there…" She stopped for a moment, still struggling to find words with Shepard radiating love and desire through the shallow meld. "The bond will be… permanent. More complicated."
Shepard squinted slightly, puzzled at her words. "And you… don't want that?" she asked, a note of distress in her voice.
"I very much want that," Liara assured. "So much. I just… I wanted you to understand, before. I didn't want it to… come as a surprise."
Shepard let out a breath that she hadn't known she'd been holding, ducking her head down to kiss Liara's neck. She inhaled, breathing in Liara's scent, letting the familiarity wash over her. "I love you," she whispered in the asari's aural, feeling Liara tremble beneath her. "And I want what you want. Whatever that is, whatever it means. I'm here, and I'm yours."
In response, Liara wrapped both her arms around the commander, pulling them together, and let the meld take them again. They fell together, away from reality, back into their private universe, back to the place where they could just be.
And then they fell deeper.
If they could bathe in starlight, this is what it would feel like. There was no Shepard here, no Liara… There was only us, one single entity who shared breath, whose hearts beat at the same time. Words were no longer needed, spoken or thought. Two souls and all they entailed- secrets, fears, hopes, dreams, needs- were laid bare to each other, fused together, reinforced. The stars of the galaxy they had forged together turned into fractals of light, illuminating the darkness, driving them even closer together than they already were.
There was no indecision here, no worries of what tomorrow would bring. Right now they were the center of their own universe. The fractals birthed nebulas, the nebulas produced more stars, and the cycle continued. And still they went deeper. They didn't know where each of them began and ended. Didn't want to. Didn't need to. Here, they simply were. They were dimly aware of their bodies only because their nervous systems were bound together, their synapses echoing back to each other on a constant feedback loop that took them higher and higher. They couldn't have pointed to whose fingers were inside who, whose mouth had just sucked in a nipple and was teasing it gently between teeth. Thoughts passed between them, more ideas than actual words.
Love you.
Need you.
Nothing will keep us apart.
We…
Are…
Everything.
They came together, unravelling and putting each other back together at the same time. Time was an immaterial construct. The meld could have lasted seconds, minutes, hours, days, or weeks and neither of them would have known. Neither of them would have cared. Even as the depth of their connection slowly dissolved them into two separate beings again, their entire world still lay focused on two bodies lying tangled together on a bed. Somehow in the throes of their passion Liara had ended up on top, her head nestled into the hollow of Shepard's shoulder.
"That was… amazing," Shepard gasped when she found her ability to speak again. The words sounded foreign and inadequate after the connection they'd just experienced, but she couldn't find ones that would do it justice, didn't know if they even existed. "Shit, you're amazing," she breathed. She let her head fall back against the pillow, holding Liara to her, both of them basking in the afterglow they'd created together. Her eyes drifted shut, and that's when she realized… "I can still feel you," she whispered.
Liara chuckled into her shoulder. "That's one of the… complications of becoming bondmates," she replied, propping herself up on one arm to look down at Shepard. "I'm afraid you're stuck with me now, Commander."
Shepard's eyes shot back open and she grinned up at Liara. "Works both ways, I think," she teased. Her grin softened into an affectionate smile, and she pulled Liara back down to kiss her. "You're amazing," she repeated softly. "This isn't a complication. This is… this is everything." Green eyes met blue ones, searching. "You don't regret it, do you?"
"You already know the answer to that," Liara whispered back. And she knew Shepard did, could see it in her eyes, but also knew her commander was searching for the same reassurance that Liara had needed earlier. "I could never regret anything with you."
The smile on Shepard's face was nothing short of radiant. She tugged on Liara's arm, knocking it out from under her and causing the asari to fall into a laughing heap at her side. She pulled her in against her, tucking her against her side, and pulled the blanket up over both of them before dropping a kiss on Liara's forehead. For a while they just laid there together, whispering softly to each other, enjoying their newfound togetherness. Eventually Liara's breathing evened out, and Shepard smiled as she realized that she had fallen asleep.
Bondmate. Shepard tried the word out mentally, surprised at how right it felt. She tightened her arm around Liara a little, being careful not to wake her but feeling suddenly protective of her. She'd fight through every army in the galaxy to keep this- Reapers, Geth, Cerberus, anyone who stood in her way of coming back home to the beautiful soul she held in her arms- and she knew this connection would always be her beacon to find a way back.
Seized with sudden inspiration, Shepard stretched an arm out for the datapad on the nightstand, bunching part of the blanket up next to her and resting it there so she could see it without lifting her head but the light wouldn't disturb Liara. She quickly swiped through the list of vendors that had been connected to the Normandy's extranet systems, heart rate quickening as she found the one that she was looking for. She spared a quick glance at Liara, making sure she was still asleep, before turning her attention back to the datapad and applying filters to her search.
She caught her lower lip between her teeth and worried at it as she flipped through the listings. Unable to find exactly what she was looking for, she copied a few of the ones she'd found that were close and put them into a message to the shop, asking if a custom order would be possible. She linked her bank account into it along with a request to forward the order to the Alliance to be added into the Normandy's next supply cache.
Satisfied with her work, Shepard wiped the history from the datapad, just in case her inquisitive bondmate- even thinking the word brought a smile to her face- happened upon it later. Setting the device back on the nightstand, she rested her cheek against the top of Liara's head and let her own eyes drift shut.
Now all she had to do was keep a secret until the time was right.