Today was not going well.
Not a single conversation or deal had ended in Liara's favor, and each one left her more agitated than the last- and she hadn't been in a good mood today to start with. She slammed her hand down on the comm controls on her desk, ending her latest conversation with a frustrated snarl. She kept hitting dead end after dead end in her attempts to infiltrate the Shadow Broker's network and pinpoint his location.
If Nyxeris had recognized that Liara was in a particularly foul mood, she made no mention of it. Her assistant was a bit strange at times, but she kept Liara's appointments in good order, which was enough. Everyone had their own quirks after all.
With a sigh, Liara pulled up her calendar to see what was next on her schedule, sighing in relief when she saw that the next few hours were clear. That was good. She needed a break. Perhaps she'd get up and stretch her legs, take a walk around the marketplace.
And then her eyes fell on the date at the corner of the screen, and she felt like she'd been punched in the gut. It wasn't unusual for her to lose track of the days given how deeply she was prone to throw herself into her work, but today had already been well on it's way to being a loss. This was just the death warrant.
She closed her eyes and took one deep breath, then another. She wouldn't find serenity, she knew, but she needed enough composure to wear a mask of calm until she was somewhere safe. Somewhere everything she did wasn't on display to be judged by those she did business with. Only once she was sure of keeping the facade in place did she open them again. Standing, she locked her terminal and purposefully walked out of the office.
"Nyxeris, reschedule my appointments for this afternoon, please. I'm taking an early day." Her voice was smooth and even, and Liara was grateful that it didn't betray her.
"Of course, ma'am," her assistant responded, and Liara strode off to the taxi stand with a nod of farewell. She wore the mask of tranquility like a cloak as she gracefully ducked into the first aircar available, saying nothing other than the address of her apartment and a polite please. The journey was blessedly short… It wasn't the first time she was glad that she'd decided to pay the extra rent each month to be closer to the trading floor. She thanked the driver and smoothly slipped from the car, trying not to betray her need to be away from public eyes with quickening steps.
Only once she was safely inside her apartment and the door had closed behind her did she let the veil slip, sagging against the wall. Guilt at nearly forgetting the day warred with ever-present grief inside of her, and a single tear escaped from her eyes and made its way down her cheek.
Two years.
Two years since the Normandy had been destroyed by the Collector's.
Two years since Shepard had died.
Two years since Liara's entire world had come crashing down around her.
Two years… and she still didn't have answers for why.
And two years hadn't done much to assuage her grief, either. It was still a fluid, ever-evolving beast that lived in her heart. She ridden out stages of grief that both human and asari counselors referenced. Denial had been the first, though surrounded by her crewmates she hadn't been able to maintain it for long. Anger had come next- at Joker, for being the reason that Shepard had left her side in the first place. At the Alliance and the Council, for not believing what Shepard was trying to warn them of and sending them off to the Terminus Systems. At herself, for letting her bondmate sacrifice her life to save the rest of them. And finally at Shepard, for not coming back to her as Liara had always believed she would.
Bargaining had come in the form of retrieving Shepard's body and handing it to Cerberus, obviously. One final last ditch effort to return what had been lost. Depression had followed soon after, compounded by feelings of guilt that she'd left Feron behind.
Acceptance was supposed to come next, she knew. But it hadn't. Instead she was stuck in an everlasting loop of the previous stages, skipping between them at the whims of her conscience. Some days were better than others. Some were worse. She wasn't sure if she'd ever be able to accept the fact that the other half of her soul was just… gone. Intellectually, she knew that she still had nearly her entire life ahead of her. She was only 108, after all. She wasn't the first asari to lose her bondmate, nor would she be the last.
But knowing that didn't help her when she woke from her nightmares trying to reach for that connection, only to have her mind ricochet back in on itself in an echoing mockery.
Two years felt like a blink and an eternity at the same time.
Liara sighed heavily, forcing herself away from the wall and toward the stairs up to her bedroom. She needed comfortable clothes, and a drink. There would be no reprieve from her memories tonight.
She paused at the bottom of the stairs, one hand coming to rest on the glass case that protected Shepard's damaged N7 chest plate. Even with sections burned, warped, or missing altogether, the armor was a testament to the Alliance's dedication to their soldiers- to survive what it had in any form was astounding. She'd lost count of how many bullets it had absorbed and protected Shepard from. No doubt it had added to the air of invincibility she had carried with her on the battlefield.
But even it hadn't been enough to protect the soldier from the Collectors.
With a heavy sigh, Liara let her hand fall away from the glass and ascended the stairs. She unceremoniously shed the traditional asari gown she was wearing, swapping it for a worn pair of sweatpants and a faded t-shirt bearing the N7 logo. The dog tags that were always present around her neck clinked softly as fabric fell over them. Not for the first time, she was grateful that she'd had the presence of mind to… liberate a few articles of Shepard's clothing from her apartment on the Citadel before the Alliance had cleared it out and sent her personal effects to her mother. Though they had long since stopped smelling like Shepard, they were still comfortable, and… well. Liara had enjoyed "stealing" Shepard's clothes when they were together, so it wasn't really surprising that she found a measure of comfort in still being able to wear them occasionally.
She returned to the kitchen, activating the apartment's sound system as she pulled a bottle of whiskey from one of the cupboards. Shepard had been the one to introduce her to scotch, and though Liara admitted it was an acquired taste, she had come to prefer it over many of the sweeter alcohols that were prevalent on Ilium. Music drifted through the apartment as she took the first sip, and she smiled slightly as the song brought back a memory.
Shepard sat at her desk, whistling happily along with the music playing from the speaker as she glued another piece of the model ship where it belonged. The sound was foreign to Liara, and she looked up from the article she was reading on the couch and stared at the soldier.
Shepard must have caught the movement in her peripheral vision, because she turned her head to look, smiling. "What?" she asked.
"That noise," Liara said. "What are you doing?"
Shepard quirked an eyebrow. "The whistling?" Liara nodded, confusion still written across her face. "It's better than my singing," Shepard joked.
That drew an involuntary chuckle from Liara. Shepard excelled at many things, but singing was definitely not one of them. "I suppose, though I don't quite understand how you're doing it."
Shepard set the model ship down and moved to sit with Liara. "Do asari not whistle?" When Liara shook her head in amusement, Shepard snorted. "Missing out. There's no reason why you shouldn't be able to physically, must be because of all those matriarchs that are stuck in the mud. Look." Before Liara had a chance to respond to Shepard's joke, the commander opened her mouth, showing Liara how she pressed her tongue against the back of her lower teeth, and then pursed her lips and blew gently through them to demonstrate. "You try? C'mon, it's fun."
Deciding to humor her, Liara did try, and after a few attempts was able to produce a slight whistling sound, though nowhere near as sharp and clear as Shepard's tune had been. "See, easy!" she said. Mischief flashed through her eyes, gone so quickly that Liara thought maybe she had imagined it. "Now, if you kinda move your tongue around a little you can change the pitch and make it higher or lower.
Amused by how interested in teaching her Shepard seemed to be, Liara pursed her lips again, trying to find the perfect place to put her tongue-
And suddenly Shepard's mouth was covering hers, her own tongue slipping easily in between Liara's lips as she kissed all coherent thought from the asari.
When the commander pulled away, her eyes were lit with joy and all Liara could do was laugh in delight along with her. "See? Whistling's fun."
Bittersweet tears clouded Liara's eyes as the memory faded. She had been privileged to see a side of Shepard that many never did, the part of her that wasn't a soldier and would do anything to make her bondmate laugh. The part of her that wore her heart on her sleeve.
I would give anything for just one more day with you...
Liara curled up in a corner of the couch and took another sip from her glass, letting the flavor of the alcohol roll over her tongue before it burned its way down her throat. Her eyes fell to the table next to her, where the picture frame that she'd salvaged from the Normandy sat. Most of the possessions on display in her apartment were simply for show, a flaunting of wealth that was expected of someone in her new profession. But the N7 chestplate, and this picture… These were for her.
The tips of her fingers brushed across Shepard's smiling face, and finally Liara let the tears fall. "I miss you," she whispered. "You were taken from me too soon, and I still don't know why." She'd promised herself that she would find out, though, at the same time she'd decided to start looking for Feron had been spirited off to. By now she was sure there was a connection there, she just hadn't found it yet.
A series of beeps sounded from the datapad that she'd left in the kitchen- priority signal. Liara frowned thoughtfully in its direction for a moment before levering herself back up off the couch to go check it. Nyxeris didn't generally flag things as priority after she'd left for the day unless they were things that Liara had specifically asked for. She drained the rest of the scotch on the way, intending to refill it after she read the message.
Her brow furrowed as she opened the message. It wasn't from Nyxeris, which begged the question of how it had come through as priority to begin with. It was addressed simply M. L. Liara's curiosity got the better of her, and she opened it. The first few lines were what appeared to be vital signs, and from the looks of they were in real time, the numbers varying subtly up and down. Bewildered, scrolled past them, and any rational thought that she might have had were wiped from existence.
Project Lazarus: Success
"Goddess." The word was a breath, a prayer, a petition. Because there in front of her eyes was a feed of a very familiar soldier lying unconscious in a bed, chest rising and falling softly with breath that Liara herself was incapable of drawing at the moment.
The datapad slipped from a numb hand and shattered against the floor, and it was all Liara could do not to fall to her knees after it, shaking with the implications of the knowledge that had just been bestowed upon her. Miranda had done the impossible. She'd rebuilt Shepard, brought her back to life. But would it be the Shepard that Liara had loved?
The answer to that question was Liara's greatest fear. But she had to know.