Well, Gale clearly teased a little too much and went a little too far. She was enjoying this little dance a little too much, and now T'Soni was a little farther away from her.

There was something to admire in that determination to avoid her, even now, during their daily exercise drill. The asari was making leaps and bounds now with this fire lit under her arse. She pushed herself to run faster and maintain this distance between her and the Commander.

"Don't think I should be tellin' her she's breakin' records, this time."

Not for lack of appreciating as to why, still.

It took all of Gale's discipline to play it cool and nonchalant, to stifle her smiles and chuckles. She kept focused on the momentum as she led the team in the drill, noting Tali's significant improvement in her records too. The quarian seemed to have a different kind of fire fuelling her ever since the mission on the Worthington rattled her, based on what was divulged in her report. She had a solemn promise to work harder in hopes to be capable in averting that kind of disaster again.

Gale didn't really have the heart to shite on her and say the conclusion wasn't for lack of capability.

With the drill well on it's way to be concluded itself, Gale braced herself for the moment the final beep rang out, the final line was crossed, and she'd have one final look of the asari racing out the gym. As expected, Gale's predication came true, and she couldn't stop smiling from amusement - though waited until T'Soni was out.

"Don't really take much to fluster her."

A new problem seemed to be coming her way with how Kaidan seemed to linger around, waiting for the others to leave. She played along and went over to the weights to squeeze some extra sets in, jerking with her head to gesture for him to approach. He rallied along with the ruse and took some weights himself, saddling up beside her as they scrutinized their form in the mirror.

"So, Commander," Kaidan's eyes narrowed slightly, the corner of his lips curled in a subtle smile. "Liara talked to me today."

"Oh, balls," Gale laughed. She already knew where this was going. "Didn't think she would."

"I didn't think she would too, especially with what seemed to be bothering her." He dropped one dumbbell and changed to overhead curls. "News to me that I had a thing for her."

"Y'didn't? Ah, nuts, so sorry for misinterpretin' your doey eyes, 'Lenko. Truly sorry."

"Can you please leave me out of your games?" Kaidan chuckled, shaking his head. "It was awkward enough trying to tell her it was alright, while playing along with the lie."

"Wish I was 'round to see it. Would'uv been a sight to see, I'm sure."

T'Soni's burning face, that was, just like how it burned because of Gale instead.

"I just don't think we should be teasing her, Commander. She doesn't seem... Well. Experienced."

"Nah, I don't think she is either." Gale shrugged, then changed to doing shoulder shrugs with her dumbbells instead. "Y'aren't just a wee bit curious 'bout her?"

"No, so no more ideas," Kaidan chuckled again. "Seriously, with all due respect, Commander, I don't appreciate it."

"Aw, alright, alright..." A beat. "Y'really aren't a wee bit-"

"Permission to speak freely, Commander?"

"Huh? Yeah, sure, whatever."

"With how she's been acting around you lately, I'd say your curiosity went a little too far." Kaidan went on over to the squatting rack and adjusted the weights, before venturing on his next set. "I really don't think she should be teased." His voice fell to a hush, his set a little more slothful in pace. "I think she deserves better."

"Foolin' me, sounds like he does like her. Maybe he's starting to with her chattin'im up."

It wasn't supposed to backfire like this, or at least to this degree. Gale hummed and nodded before she set the dumbbells back on the rack and went over to the chin-up bar.

"Fair enough, mate. Honestly, yeah, I think I took it a wee bit too far. No more games." She jumped up and pulled herself up, sighing as she slowly controlled her descent. "I am a wee bit curious myself, though. Y'reckon we'd make good mates? Once she ain't so shy 'round me, anyway."

"That's... I'm not really sure what to say, Commander."

Gale blew a raspberry and laughed before she pulled herself up over the bar again. "Ah yeah, protocol and shite. Y'don't hav'ta worry 'bout that with me. Permission to speak freely any time, yeah? Y'got a good head on your shoulders." She paused again, holding for as long as she could until her arms began to quiver with fatigue. "Did you read the reports about the Worthington? Got any thoughts?"

Alenko briefly curtailed his advice, before snowballing into more. She always trusted him to give him the low down, no bullshit, his analysis of the situation. It fell in line with that there was nothing differently she could have done, or at least, nothing differently he would have done in her shoes. It didn't help as much as she wanted it to. She couldn't help but feel as though there was something differently she could have done, or at least, something differently T'Soni would have done in her shoes. It was hard to draw a line between where it was just soft gooey civilian versus a harsh reality that demanded iron-fist action, as trained and embedded by the Alliance.

Feedback became a little tricky to navigate with the ground party with so many varying opinions to balance, with many affirming they would have done the same in her shoes, in varying degrees. So what the hell was T'Soni seeing that everybody else wasn't?

"Sometimes she reminds me of the poor sods on Earth. On a mission to be a hero, in social services. Never ended well for 'em."

Kaidan suddenly stopped in his set, his head snapping over to the gym's exit. Gale used the mirror and insufferably failed to stop her smirk when she'd seen a blushing beet in the background. The asari clearly felt awkward as she went over to the benches to retrieve her bag of belongings, before making a mad dash for the exit. It was just impossible to restrain the need to play, at least a little bit, and Gale dropped down from the chin-up bar, pretending to do some stretches as she made way for the exit herself.

Kaidan's chuckle echoed with a sorry arse reminder. "No games, Commander."

"Not playin' any," she offhandedly replied. "I'm goin' on a research endeavour myself, is all."

"Yeah, that sounds like the title of a game to me."

Gale laughed.

Goodness Goddess, Liara was going to die if she had any more blood rushing to her head. She sought a frigid shower to quell this insufferable heat stubbornly clinging to her complexion, unable to evict the words out of her mind any time she'd be near the vulgar human. Her teeth chattered and still the intense biting cold did little to her thoughts, so she twisted the handle to at least embrace the warmth - and perhaps have an excuse to lie to herself about the nature of this permanently burning face.

Marines came and went, showering quickly, each body serving as a reminder that she was stalling here. She didn't want to leave, didn't want to chance bumping into Shepard, and couldn't quite bring herself to focus on studying her OSDs with this cruel memory tormenting her.

But she was tempting fate, knowing that at some point, the Commander will likely come here herself after she was finished her workout in the gym.

Another hotblooded blush renewed it's vigorous throbbing in her cheeks. She was guilty of ogling a little, then, before she'd thawed and remembered to retrieve her belongings. Her composure was nowhere to be found when she could practically feel the way the varren was smirking, even if she didn't have the courage to see and confirm it.

"Focus!"

Right now, she had to hide before the predator found it's prey. She quickly finished her shower and raced into the locker room, donning her clothes in record speed. She'd braved a glance around to see the other humans in here chatting away, but none with the vibrant hair she expected to see. She melted with relief. She tossed her workout uniform in the chute and went to the shelves to pick a fresh one of her size, tucking it away in her locker for the next blasted drill.

Instincts kicked in and she immediately rounded a locker to hide when she'd spotted red hair in her peripheral vision. She ignored the confused look of a nearby marine as she peeked out the corner, and consequently flushed hotter than ever before. She'd gotten an eyeful of the Commander's back as Shepard went off towards the showers.

An eyeful of a peculiar line of fresh bruises, too, that slashed across her lower back.

Liara didn't let her gaze venture any lower, or at least linger longer than the chance glance she'd had. She rushed to take her things and escaped the locker rooms before the Commander was aware of her presence, all but speed-walking to her quarters. She kept her gaze down and refused to look at anyone she passed in her determined mission to hide as soon as possible.

Once safe, she fell on her cot with a sigh as the strength was sucked out of her wobbly legs. Her entire body ached from the drill, pushed past limits where she was sure she was going to die at the time - but that fate was still far more preferable than having the devil on her heels.

At the very least, all these recent terrifying encounters had imbued her with the courage to finally talk to Kaidan about a most awkward subject, and thankfully it wasn't at all as horrible as she thought it would be. True to his nature, he was kind and understanding, still compassionate and comforting her even though she confessed she didn't share his feelings. She was so sure he'd be upset or at least disappointed, but he appeared to be neither.

Memories never desisted in tormenting her. She couldn't help but wonder of her latest curiosity as to the nature of the Commander's bruises, up until her gaze had panned over to the terminal. Right. Shepard had saddled up behind her to take the blow of her fall. Her back would've jammed against the table.

It was confounding, these thoughts and feelings. The human was the roughest around the edges, her nature more on par with a krogan.

{...d'you need more research material?}

This was inappropriate. Liara's curiosities always manifested in the abundance of questions surrounding the Prothean beacon, and now she had no opportunity - nor courage - to find a time and place where she could inquire about them. She wondered if there was a reason the Commander seemed to be keeping her at arm's length about it all, or so it felt.

Was this all just a part of some game, to tease her some more?

Liara sucked in the corner of her bottom lip and nibbled away, forcing herself to realign the trajectory of her thoughts by taking her seat back at her terminal. She begun her work on the other OSD she'd been given, though was almost instantaneously shattered by just how much of the data was corrupted. There was maybe a sentence or two, but upon playing it back, she frantically worried if her imagination was just coming up with things out of hope.

Muscles locked down upon hearing her doors hiss. She wasn't sure who's turn it was to check on her but she wasn't brave enough to check and look. Her stomach was thrown into chaos as glitterwings beat fiercely upon hearing a most damning chuckle dance in the air.

"Should've checked here first. Would've saved me a lot of time. Daft of me, innit?"

Heavy footsteps - clunky, armoured, it sounded like - approached. An OSD was placed on the table. Liara meekly glanced over, restraining her hand from darting out to seize the OSD out of nervousness that her hand would be seized by the human. She subtly cleared her throat and forced herself to look with a smile, though she couldn't quell the warmth that beat at the base of her neck.

"Thank you, Commander. Is this the first one?"

"Aye. Just no holin' up like a rat again, y'hear?" She rapped her knuckles along the counter before she turned to leave. "I'm 'bout to head off. I'll let Tali know to check in for me if I take longer than a couple hours." She waved over her shoulder as she exited the room. "See you later, love."

Well... That wasn't so bad. It was nice and normal, no teasing, no mischief. A slight bit of disappointment. Liara still flushed at the memory of it all, but now she was confused by it all too. The flirting was just... So intimate and personal to her. Was it not the same for the Commander? Perhaps not, with how she seemed to imply that she helped in 'other' ways, and made 'other' asari...

Liara dove straight back into the first OSD with a vengeance, determined to quell this warmth in her cheeks. She took a minor break with reading up on updates for whatever kind of mission the Commander was on now. It seemed like another mundane collection run, setting up beacons to survey the land for potential resources and assets that the Alliance could utilize. It wasn't a secret that the archaeologist preferred the more peaceful missions, and she wondered if her butting heads with the Commander about what happened on the Worthington was the reason why Liara was in here rather than out there.

"What if I had gone too far and offended her? What if she's contemplating my stay on board the Normandy?"

Anxiety shot through her at that thought. She didn't want to be abandoned on some planet, at the mercy of Saren's goons again. She chewed away at her lip and was forced to shut down her study when she couldn't focus. She curled her arms beneath her head and closed her eyes, resting on her desk. She brainstormed other tasks she could help with on the Normandy in case if this new tenure of being a passive crew member would be extended, hoping Dr. Chakwas could use an extra hand in the lab.

Her brainstorming session was cut short with that being really her only concrete idea.

Liara sighed. She allowed her thoughts to drift, and no matter how hard she tried to ignore it all, it always danced around the memory that elicited her blushes. It was her most pressing issue - especially the pressing part. It left her in a chaotic mess where she had even contended with indignant anger that she was stressed to this degree, just because a human was doing what humans were famous for.

Bullying.

"I will not be bullied," Liara inwardly huffed. "If she thinks I am like all other asari for her to toy with and experience pleasure at leisure, she is sorely mistaken."

Steam collected and she huffed and puffed in her little safe nook, tightening her arms when her makeshift pillow grew too taut to be comfortable with. A buzz pricked her fingertips, accompanied a ping that lit up an amber holo-disc on her forearm. She lifted her head, confused as to who could be requesting a vid-call with her at this time, and she engaged her omni-tool to see who it was. She froze when the name glared at her.

Commander Shepard.

Reluctantly, she answered it in the event that perhaps this was an emergency request for her to suit up and head on over. Her eyes widened when she saw a large sea behind Shepard, from a vantage point of the vanguard's arm above her head.

She was free-scaling a wretched cliff.

"'Ey love!" Shepard's eyes grinned between the thin visor of her helmet. "Lookie here? Thought you'd 'ppreciate this view!" Her arm swung about, blindly aiming the camera of her omni-tool, and her feet noisily scraped frantically, suddenly. "Whoa-oa... Oh. Nevermind, all good! Look, doc!" Another wild swing. "Ain't it gorgeous?!"

"You called me for this?" Liara asked, baffled. "Please tell me you have safety measures in place and that you did not just decide to scale a mountain to-"

"Aye, no worries, love! Used to climb all the time back home. Just lookie at the sea!"

Shepard held her arm up above her head, and she looked so at ease as she had leaned back, her only hold on the cliff an arm's length apart with fingers that could break the rock and have her plummeting down to meet a grisly end, swallowed by turbulent waves.

Gulls cawed in the distance and the sounds of water crashing against the mountain was certainly a sight to behold, and more than ever, Liara had actually wanted to be there in person. She was sorely reminded of her passive-aggressive punishment of being left behind here. She heard somebody call for the Commander, but Shepard seemed enraptured by the scenery as she had looked down between her legs, then over her shoulder behind her.

Liara smiled as she absorbed the feed with the impromptu camera crew at her disposal.

"You are insane, Commander," she softly murmured.

Hearty laughter accompanied the crashing waves. Shepard's eyes came back on the feed, though she seemed to be looking up past the omni-tool. "Yeah, I'm over the cliff here, just climbin'!" She hollered, and Liara chuckled upon recognizing curses soon hailed about. Chief Williams. It seemed the soldier was not entirely unused to the Commander's reckless antics.

"Just climbing, she says," Liara scoffed teasingly within her thoughts. She watched and listened to the grunts and under-breath murmurs as the vanguard worked to scale back up the cliff. She often got a side view of the expansive jagged cliff, sometimes accompanied with little sneak peeks of the side of Shepard's helmet.

"Could you at least say when you're jumping off a cliff to die so I know what to report about my crazy ass Commander?" Ashley inquired with annoyance when Shepard was near the top. A hand was thrust in the camera's view and all the vanguard did was laugh as she always did, taking the offer and being hauled up.

"That concludes our tour," Shepard saluted cheekily when she held her omni-tool up away from her. "Hope y'enjoyed a view of the present instead'uv drivin' yourself up the wall over the past. See you soon, love!"

Ashley's protests were cut short when the feed died.

There was more left for Liara to contemplate and reflect on now, it seemed. Her gaze trailed over the second OSD on her desk. Her work was important. She didn't expect her passion to be shared by the Commander - when it was a field in archaeology that was the least traversed, with how notorious it was to dig up anything about the Protheans.

Half her life has been poured into researching them, digging up dirt and combing through bones. She often stumbled upon interesting findings of other things that were unrelated to Protheans as well. Perhaps if she shared that knowledge with the Commander, the vanguard wouldn't think of her as the insane one of the two, when it was so utterly clear that title belonged only to Shepard.

At the very least, it set many concerns to rest. Liara laid her head on her arms and closed her eyes, a smile drifting on her lips as her brainstorming session carried her on a more enjoyable ride, thinking of all the facts and findings she could delight her colleagues on this ship with.

"Perhaps I could hold voluntary informational sessions? It would encourage curiosity and discussion among the crew, and perhaps it would inspire some to join research patrols. There was always a need for experienced security, back on my university trips."

Sleep carried her with ease and she welcomed it, her shoulders a lot less tense. She barely heard the whooshing of her door, accompanied by chuckles. Her mouth tugged in a lazy smile upon a familiar smell settling by her head: tea. A firm hand drew circles between her shoulder blades, and she recruited her tongue to bite - hard - to stop herself from smiling or giving it away that she was awake.

"What'm I supposed to do with you, love?"

Carefully collected out of her chair, Liara was carried along. She swore her act must've been up with the way she felt her throat burn hot. She was laid to rest on her small cot, her boots pulled off before a blanket was pulled over her. She feigned a groan and inched onto her side ever so 'sleepily', listening intently to try and figure out what the other presence in here was doing, without looking. The door never hissed open or closed. The smells of wherever Shepard had been traipsing all over were carried in here.

"I can still smell the sanitary odour on her - she came straight here from decontamination, or rather... From the mess, it seems."

Cheeks ached with a desperate suppression of her smiles. She listened to armour scraping and scuffling when it sounded as though Shepard had sat in her chair. There was a noisy chugging of what was probably the tea meant for her. It made her realize that there was always a tribute of tea, and she wondered where it was all even coming from. She never found any containers of loose tea or bags of it in the mess hall, whenever she searched.

"Perhaps I am looking in the wrong place. I think I saw a box beside the coffee machine in the recreational room."

Noises erupted to life, piquing her interest. She held her breath to listen closely. She couldn't help but smile as she listened to those noises speed forward, then rewind, the Commander seemingly searching for a particular point to play. When she had, she often played from that point.

"See? I am not the only one listening to recordings over and over again."

It was a point that shouldn't have come as a surprise to the Commander. It was peculiar as to why she was replaying it on a loop. Wasn't she already aware of this obvious fact?

"You are insane, Commander."

Here, in the recreational room, Liara found her confidence and her footing in her first impromptu informational session, her class so far consisting only the Commander. She wanted to practice on the one person she knew would sooner resist her passion, and what better way than to convince such a person, before embarking to enlighten more crew members?

"So, hold up there love, slow down. Why you tellin' me this?"

"Isn't it interesting? It beckons questions surrounding why drell friars were so riddled with these intestinal parasites, despite these monasteries existing in a period of time where they had access to hygienic care, unlike the houses of ordinary local and unwealthy drell. This was also outside the influence of the hanars, a time long before they'd saved the drell from extinction. Out of curiosity, I delved more into drell history to have a better grasp of their timelines in that era. I hypothesized and published a theory that these parasitic infections may have come down to monks manuring crops in friary gardens with their own feces, or perhaps utilizing fertilizer containing drell excrement."

"Still waitin' to hear why I'm hearin' this."

"Don't you see? When I published what I'd found and what I had yet to find, there were so many archaeologists that embarked on their own endeavours and reached out to me with their findings. From all walks of life, different archaeologists from different species began to delve deeper into the histories of parasite prevalence among all known species! History teaches us a lot of what others have survived. I found it particularly interesting to have stumbled upon my findings, especially and peculiarly in the same community, despite the drell living drastically different lifestyles. Typically, it has commonly been evident that those unwealthy are also the ones most unhealthy. This time, from what I'd found, it was the complete opposite!"

Shepard permanently wore a puzzled look, and she eased back in her chair as she nursed her mug of tea. She didn't seem to be understanding the importance of it all still - or the accomplishments of solving buried mysteries. She nodded and hummed thoughtfully as Liara's passion continued on it's roll, bouncing about in front of the rec room's couch, her hands dancing in wild gestures as she used a large hologram screen to draw diagrams to have a visual of the timelines she was jumping about in.

"Feel like I'm 'bout to regret this," Shepard interjected hesitantly, "But exactly how did you even find out about these parasites in the first place?"

"Oh! It's a technique I utilize often in order to determine potential causes of death, as well as an estimate on the age of fossils I come upon. I extracted and investigated samples of soil taken around the pelvises of the remains. I studied the damaged structure nearby to determine who these remains were - where the building's architectural design bore many similarities to the time period of how the drell constructed their monasteries, back then. Then I went to a former cemetary documented to house many of the local drell in a neighbouring community."

Another bounce about in front of her screen, her finger imbued with the zeal of her lifelong passion as she began to scribble down numbers from a memory that must've been about 30 years old, now, from whence she remembered stumbling upon these remains at all.

"This monastery was also concluded to have been known to be a primary place of learning where monks would come to read manuscripts. My findings yielded that 58% of the monks were infected by parasites, compared to 32% of the general drell folk. These rates would have likely been the minimum as well, as actual numbers of infections would have been higher, but traces of eggs in pelvic sediment would have been destroyed over time by fungi and insects. I'm no virologist or parasitologist, but I tapped into sources at my university to have a basic grasp of it all in order to understand how these parasites would have come to be, to rule out other theories first. You see, parasites are generated by excess various kinds of phlegm, whether it be salt phlegm or sour phlegm and there's even sweet phlegm and-"

Shepard's hand shot up, a pleading look apologetically etched onto her face. "Doc, I have to stop you. The only thing I'm hearin' right now is how you've been diggin' up literal shite all your life."

Liara's face flamed. "I... I have not... Haven't you been listening? I've been testing soil-"

"Dug in around peoples' bits."

"B-but the findings!"

"Now you're onto phlegm and I'm findin' out there's sweet and salty phlegm. Like what the fuck, love? I'm tryin' hard, I really am, love, but I'm findin' it hard t'believe someone so excited over worms and dirt and shite. Can we just agree to disagree here? Y'think I'm bonkers, I think you're bonkers, let's just leave it at that."

"But... I thought you'd... I thought if I'd explain, you'd see why I'm... Well..." Liara's gaze fell to the ground and she stood in front of her holographic diagram, feeling utterly awkward and mortified now that she's apparently disgusted the Commander, rather than compelled her to see the scientific breakthroughs that archaeology was capable of.

Shepard sighed and finished her tea, setting it aside on the table beside the couch. She rocked forward off her heels and bounced up into standing, sauntering over with the kind of smile that screamed as though she was trying really hard to be kind, but found Liara utterly hopeless. A reassuring pat on the shoulder was accompanied by a gentle lift of the chin, her heart soon racing upon feeling the finger curled under her chin.

"Chin up, love. Lookin' so down ain't a good look on you. It's okay, innit? I don't understand everythin' about you, you don't understand everything 'bout me. It's all fair in the end. I don't think any less of ya, if that's what you're steamin' up for." Shepard came close, suddenly, but just as quickly backed off as if she'd thought against something. She shoved her hands in her pockets and beamed a grin, pivoting cheekily on her heels as she gave a casual salute. She grabbed her mug and went to leave the rec room.

"Will say this, though... It's a sight t'see you so excited. Makes me a wee bit curious if I can make you that excited if I ever get to dig in your bits."

Liara choked.