Chapter Four: The Short Goodbye

Liara and Shepard sat there, on his bed, staring at each other. In any other situation Liara would have been embarrassed, for she was inches away from a dashing commander on a rather comfortable bed. Several times Shepard had opened his mouth to say something, but had apparently changed his mind at the last moment. Liara was drained, both physically and mentally. Melding was far different from what she had thought it would be. She murmured to Shepard, "I-ah-need to take a nap."

Shepard was still for a moment more, and then nodded his head. He chuckled darkly and replied, "I think I need one too."

She managed to stumble out of his room, go through the Mess hall, past the Med Bay, and reach her own room without incident. Stopping herself from passing out in one of the Normandy's public areas felt better than graduating from university. Sleep should've taken her the moment she hit her cot, but her thoughts held her captive.

Liara hoped and prayed that somehow the images she had seen were hybrids of the Prothean beacon, and Shepard watching too many soap operas. Deep down, however, she knew that nothing about what she'd seen was fictitious. Every scream, every stench, every panicked look was real. Or had been. Those scenes hadn't been recent, judging by Shepard's young appearance and Prothean memories. She had experienced the raw emotions Shepard felt at the time of each memory. They could've been yesterday, if the Commander's unfiltered emotions were any indicator.

It was a miracle he was so cheerful all the time. If she had been through half that, she would have been on the galaxy's most wanted list. She had expected melding to be peaceful, and not nearly as tiring. When she watched his memories and the Prothean beacon play out, it had been so real and devastating that several times she had to remind herself that these weren't pictures from her own past. Liara could've been there, it was so real.

...

Before the bullet even left the chamber, he knew it would not miss. Shepard also knew it would be his last bullet of the day. His enemy was done for. What happened next almost made Shepard hang up his armor, and become a simple chicken farmer.

Liara ran over to Benezia's bleeding out form, and they exchanged words. What was said, Shepard would never find out. He was close enough to listen, but he couldn't hear. Tears streamed down Liara's face. Colt glanced down at his own hands, disgusted that their aim was so steady. Deep down, in the logical part of his brain, he knew it couldn't have turned out any other way. He knew he couldn't talk to Benezia and convince her to come aboard the Normandy. That part kept telling him that no matter how much he might have wanted it; Liara, Benezia, and himself would never have held hands and joyfully skipped to his boat singing songs from Fleet and Flotilla. It was ridiculous to feel guilty, but still he did. He shouldn't have given two shits; it was just another enemy nut out of the way. But he did care.

The walk back to the Normandy was a special kind of torture. Colt tried not to notice Liara's silent tears or the way she hung her head. Even Joker's jokes were not enough to cheer him up. Several times he tried to turn to Liara, to say how sorry he was, but he couldn't find the words.

When he sat in his commander cave he tried to think of things to say to Doctor T'Soni, things like: 'Oh hey, sorry about your mother. Saren's a little bitch, and your mom's in a better place… except she might not be because she didn't see the flash of light, but hey don't think about it!' He quickly came to the conclusion that all his ideas were horrendous. Bringing lots of chocolate, stupid jokes, and a shoulder to cry on were much better ideas than trying to force out an awkward apology.

Shepard mentally prepared himself forwhatever could happen with Liara, and strode into the Mess Hall. He quickly gathered all the chocolate he could possibly find and walked to Liara's door, ignoring the bewildered stares from crew members. Luckily, Doctor Chakwas wasn't there, because explaining how he had enough chocolate to clog the arteries of a whale would be another pain in the ass he didn't need. At least three times he tried to knock on Liara's door and finally found the courage to do So. When he heard the "come in", he walked slowly in, hoping that Liara would understand why he had had to kill Benezia.

…

Liara sat on her cot. Something bad had happened. Something life changing. None of it had really caught up with her, but she knew that it would burn. Maybe not today; everything was still settling in.

For a long time, Liara had thought Benezia could be convinced to join the crew of the Normandy. The indoctrination that had poisoned her mother's brain had taken that opportunity away from them.

One minute she was talking to her mother, and the next she was talking with Saren's puppet. Mom had launched at her, biotics seconds from ripping Liara apart, when Shepard had blown her backwards with a gunshot to the chest.

Remembering the way Shepard had saved her life brought a new emotion to her, in fact she was about to dissect it until she had heard someone knocking and a minute later Shepard had shuffled in. His eyes were downcast, and his arms were loaded with bags full of something. He set down the bags on her desk, turning slowly. Then Shepard just suddenly opened his arms, and without a further thought she found herself being cradled by his strong hands.

She didn't know how long they had been embracing, but came to the conclusion that forever probably wouldn't have been long enough. When they finally stepped back from each other she noticed that the Commander's shirt was soaked. She touched her cheeks and found that they were also wet; she didn't even realize she had cried. Shepard was looking at her with a worried expression, but in truth she felt much better. She offered him a small smile. He seemed to relax a fraction of an inch, and walked over to her desk. He ungracefully ripped open one of the bags and turned back, offering something. She nervously took it, unsure of what it was. Upon closer inspection it appeared to be similar to a candy found on Thessia. She quickly ate it and magically felt better. "What's it called?" Liara asked.

Smiling, Shepard said, "Chocolate… the eighth wonder of the world." She had to agree with him on that part. "Capable of helping anyone, through anything," he continued.

…

After Liara and Shepard had eaten a tremendous amount of chocolate, they found themselves sitting on Liara's bed talking about Benezia.

"Tell me about her," Shepard offered quietly. He didn't want to know about Benezia, he didn't want to know about the person that he had shot through the chest. But this was for Liara, so he had to ask.

"She always made time for me, even if she had hours of work waiting for her. When I was younger we used to make forts. I always pretended they were Prothean ruins but I never told her that. She wouldn't have found that quite as amusing as I did. She wanted to support me, with whatever I did. It's true that she didn't appreciate my fascination with the Protheans but she never truly tried to stop it. If she had truly not wanted me doing my own thing then I would probably be locked in a tower somewhere-"

"Wait, did you just reference a human fairytale?" Shepard asked, grinning.

Liara, unable to contain the blush that was spreading across her face nodded and said, "Well, I was curious about humans. So I did some research into them and found that your 'fairytales', as you call them, are pretty good." She stopped,and started staring at Shepard in the weirdest way. He realized that his grin was probably taking his face hostage.

"Really, Doctor T'Soni? What else have you found while researching humans," Commander Shepard's tone of voice had slipped into its normal, teasing tone.

Liara started turning even more blue before answering, "Well I-ah-learned a lot about you. For example I learned that you-ah-lived on the streets as a child." Shepard was a little surprised that she hadn't asked him about it, but wasn't shocked she had known about it. One could find a lot on the extranet.

"I see...and what do you think?" He said.

"I certainly haven't met anyone who has lived through so much… or is so fascinating," she said. Shepard couldn't help but wonder if she was only fascinated with his link to the Protheans. After all, she had just said the word 'Prothean' at least a thousand times when she spoke about Benezia.

"So am I fascinating? Or is it my Protheanness that you find so interesting?" Shepard replied. It was important to know what Liara wanted.

"At first I was drawn to your link with the Protheans, and how your mind wasn't completely obliterated by it. Then my fascination with you started to surpass my fascination with the link." Shepard was relieved, after her initial comment he thought that only his weird link to the past was what made him intriguing. The two were getting dangerously close, and Shepard was okay with that.

They were leaning closer, and closer until Joker came over the speakers, "Commander, Garrus wants to speak with you about the Mako." After a number of choice words and a frustrated goodbye from Shepard, he headed to the cargo bay. Garrus was about to receive a tongue lashing that people would make legends out of.

…

"Thank you, Garrus," Shepard angrily huffed at Garrus Vakarian. The turian had no idea what he had done. All he had ever wanted to do was to tell Shepard that launching the Mako down large cliffs was an activity he advised against. He was even going to point out what it did to the Mako, and how he personally had to fix it. His entire speech quickly vanished from his mind when he saw how mad Shepard was. "Umm, what did I do?" Garrus hoped his innocent voice would win over the Commander.

"To start off I was inches from Liara, and about to…," Shepard started off angry, and ended up sounding almost as embarrassed as Liara always was.

Garrus knew exactly what had happened, and he started laughing, "I see your winning over the hearts and souls of the ladies...or whatever, on the ship."

Shepard turned even brighter red, and replied, "Well it's crucial to the mission, you know. People have to trust me." Garrus knew he had brought Shepard back from the brink of a temper tantrum when he saw him grinning like an idiot.

"Oh yes, I'm sure Liara trusts you completely," he said. Their easy back, and forth banter reminded Garrus why he had first come with the Spectre. Not only did he not have to follow rules, (something Garrus really appreciated after C-Sec) but the human also had a charm to him. Garrus had no problem imagining Shepard bringing peace to the galaxy, and causing all the races to be so happy that rainbows flew out their asses. In fact Garrus was almost positive that the human would play a huge role in his future.

…

Author's Note: I'm so sorry it took so long to get this chapter up, but I was battling a case of writer's block. This chapter fought me every step of the way; in my opinion this particular part of the storyline after Benezia's death is one of the hardest chapters to write. Usually you can go off of past experiences to help your writing be more believable, but I've never had a parent die and I've never had a friend who went through that either. Hopefully I will be quicker to update with the coming chapters.

-Wolfstar