Chapter Eleven:Thessia Vacation

Day One

"Look at these ruins Shepard! How could the Protheans build something so...wonderful, and leave so little behind?" Liara T'Soni asked, staring in wonder at a large edifice that towered over her. It was more than fifty thousand years old and yet it looked almost pristine. Liara expected to find nothing in there, of course, but no ever said she couldn't admire the structure itself.

"It's very nice Liara," Shepard said in a forced voice. When Liara turned around to ask him what that was all about, she found that he was completely turned around and not even looking at the ruins.

"What's your favorite part of it Shepard? The way it curves to the left or its white surface?" Liara was a little more than slightly agitated.

"I like how it curves to the left, the white paint is just a bonus," Shepard was still talking in that distant voice, he seemed to be looking at something in the distance.

"That's interesting because it seems to be painted black and curving right," she knew this would get Shepard to turn around.

"I'm sorry Liara," he turned slowly, "I just thought I saw something, but it turns out I'm just crazy." He did quite a good job of looking shameful, so Liara decided to let him off the hook.

"Tell me something I don't know," she turned back around to hide the smile that plastered her face. She heard sobbing behind her and once again turned back around. How did Shepard manage to hurt himself on friendly Thessia? "Shepard, what's wrong?"

"I just never thought this day would come," he was still sobbing and Liara had absolutely no idea about what he was talking about. "Let the records show that Liara T'Soni made her first joke today," Shepard was peeking one eye out from behind his hands, showing that he wasn't crying at all.

Liara couldn't help but laugh at the whole thing, "You're a good actor, Colt. I actually thought you had gotten hurt." She didn't mean to use his first name, but it just came out. She glanced nervously at Shepard expecting him to be upset by the use of his first name, but he was still grinning like an idiot. Thank the Goddess he was so hard to offend. "Come on, let's go see the ruins."

"Yes ma'am," he then proceeded to do the sloppiest salute she had ever seen. The ruins weren't too far away, which was good because Shepard wasn't supposed to over use his right leg for a couple days. He had broken his left arm and sprained his right ankle, both were healed in a day, but the doctors wanted to make sure that he didn't aggravate his ankle. They were allowed to take a four day vacation before Shepard had to get ready for a new assignment.

Liara had been to many, many Prothean ruins and never grew tired of them. She knew that there wouldn't be anything new, but she liked to think about how she was currently walking somewhere that Protheans had walked.

"So what do you expect to find in here?" They were finally in the ruins and Shepard glanced all around their surroundings.

"Nothing," Liara knew that her answer would only frustrate Shepard, but it was the truth.

"You sure this is the thing you want to do on our vacation? I mean finding nothing sounds fantastic but I don't know… we could always just stay in our hotel," Shepard was right beside her when he said that and when Liara turned to look at him, he waggled his eyebrows in a suggestive manner.

"As appealing as that sounds, I've never been to these ruins and-," Liara stopped talking when Shepard had whipped his head around and was staring intently behind them.

As quietly as possible Liara asked, "What's wrong Shepard?"

"I just thought I heard something, sorry. Please continue," he said.

That's how their day went. Liara wondered around the ruins, examining anything she thought was interesting, while Shepard tried his very best to look interested.

…

Day Two

"The object of the game is to get this ball into the other person's portion of the field. Whoever gets it into the goal the most wins," Colt and Liara were in a park on Thessia. After many attempts to teach Liara about American football, Shepard had slowly eliminated different rules until it was just: get the ball past your opponent and into the goal.

"That makes a lot more sense than your previous renditions of the rules," Liara replied, still clearly not convinced that humans played such a confusing game.

"Well half the fun of football is trying to understand what's happening," he said. "You can have the ball first as you're the lady." Liara took the ball from Colt's hands and grinned evilly at him. "Umm… Liara maybe I didn't make this clear, but another rule of the game is to not kill you opponent."

"Don't worry," she said simply, and then turned towards her side of the field. Colt was starting to have doubts about teaching Liara.

T'Soni was in position, as was Colt,so he called out for the game to begin. Almost immediately Liara charged towards Shepard, an easy block. She was about two feet from him when her hand glowed with blue energy. Oh shit. Liara had lost her mind. Sure he was Commander Shepard, but his insides didn't take a liking to being warped. Blue energy hit him and he rose up in the air paralyzed. He spun around in the air and watched Liara run past him into his goal. She did this weird little dance (it was actually really cute but Shepard refused to be distracted) and it went on for a long time. Finally she stopped and the pull he had gotten sucked into disappeared and he fell to the ground in a storm of swear words.

"That was cheating!" Shepard said after he managed to stagger on to his feet.

"You never said I couldn't use biotics, so I just simply used all my resources," Colt tried hard to keep up his angry aurora, but it was nearly impossible with Liara in such a good mood.

Shepard used a very scientific voice when he said, "I liked your victory dance, however. I can certainly see why asari are dancers."

…

Day Three

Doctor T'Soni couldn't wait to use the hot tub in their hotel and she was sure Shepard wouldn't complain either. "The hot tub looks really nice, I think we should go." The couple was sitting on the couch watching television, but Liara had her sights set on convincing Colt of the hot tub's superiority to the couch.

Shepard turned his body slightly and looked at her, "Is that so? I think I might need some more convincing. The news is pretty interesting."

Liara was running her hand up and down Shepard's arm, "Well, let's see. I'll be in a bathing suit-."

"Let's go right now!" He yelled.

"Sounds like a plan, let me get ready," Liara got up to get her bathing suit and left a very happy Colt on the couch.

The trip to the pool was very uneventful since the pair had put on clothes over their swim suits, although Shepard did keep glancing around as if he expected Geth to fly out of nearby potted plants. It was kind of a weird time to be vacationing, so there weren't lots of other guests. The hot tub looked as luxurious as Liara had imagined it would be. Settling in it was a little difficult because of the temperature but all was soon forgotten when she turned around to look for Colt. He was currently taking off his shirt and she couldn't do anything besides stare. When he looked up and saw her staring, a massive smile lit his whole face.

"You know it's impolite to stare," Shepard got into the hot tub next to Liara and pulled her close.

Liara was too embarrassed to say anything besides, "The bubbles are relaxing."

"Yah, just wait until I turn on the hot tub's bubbles," Shepard fell silent and the realization of his sentence's implications suddenly dawned on Liara. Oh Goddess. "That was a joke Liara."

…

Day Four

"We won't be out long, dad. I promise I'll take care of Alex," Shepard was talking to his dad.

"Fine, but don't stay out past dark, you know what New York is like," his father replied, placing a massive hand on Shepard's shoulder.

...

"Look," Colt's little brother pointed happily at a fire truck that passed them over head. All the other children on the playground also looked up happily.

"We better get going, buddy. Daddy will worry about us," he replied, scooping up his sibling.

…

"Shepard, wake up!" Shepard opened his eyes and realized that Liara was shaking him.

"Hey, I'm okay. I just had a bad dream," Shepard sat up in the hotel's bed and peered around the room, just to make sure it was real life.

"You were mumbling and thrashing around," Liara looked down at him, concern written all over her face.

"It was just a dream; let's not let it ruin our last day of vacation. I was thinking that we need to take pictures today," Shepard was getting ready for the day now.

Liara had taken around a thousand photos of Colt before he decided that they needed a photo with both of them in it. The first pictures were of Shepard kissing Liara on the cheek but that changed to arms over the shoulder and that type of thing. Once Shepard had sat down on a rock all by himself and Liara had managed to take an unusual picture of him. He was usually smiling or doing something stupid in pictures but in this one he was looking to his right with the saddest expression Liara had ever seen. She almost deleted it.

…

Author's Note: This chapter was very hard to write. Sorry for the delay but it was hard trying to decide on what Liara and Shepard would do on vacation. I mean Shepard was usually killing and blowing stuff up, not sipping on a margarita in paradise. I actually wrote a couple chapters that started after this one because of the difficulty I had. The good news is that since I've already written the chapter after this one, you should be seeing an update tomorrow.