Author's Note – Another de-anon from the kinkmeme. A couple of years back, I had hit a wall on Moments In Time & the other stories. Some of the prompts on the kinkmeme nudged aside my writer's block, but I felt bad for spending time on them & not my other stuff, so I just left them anonymous.
Fair warning: this one is quite a bit longer than Dance With Me and a LOT darker, with depictions of domestic abuse, both physical and emotional, though I don't get too graphic with it. It's also not finished yet, something that I'm hoping that posting it here will rectify. I've got more edits that I want to do on this one, too, so it'll be going up at a slower pace, likely a chapter a week-ish.
That said, this is one of my personal favorites because of all the crew appearances that I managed to wedge in.
"They want me to what?" Lisbeth Shepard looked at her best friend as though she had started speaking an unknown language.
Liara T'Soni felt the blush race from her toes to the tips of her crest, and if there was any mercy at all in the universe, a hole would open in the floor beneath her before she managed to repeat what she'd said. No reprieve seemed forthcoming, however, so she forced the words out. "Several of our most respected matriarchs have approached me. They feel -" She swallowed hard, pushed on. "They feel that you are a superior example of the human species, and wanted me to ask if you would be willing to be the father of an asari child."
"That's what I thought you said." Lisbeth blinked, looking bemused, then chuckled. "It's a little more eloquent than the mating request I got from the krogan, anyway."
"Goddess, Shepard." Liara dropped her face into her hand, wondering if it was possible for her face to burst into flame. "I told them I would pass on their request, and I have. Now, could we just forget -"
"Lia, it's all right." A gentle grip pried her hand away from her face, and she found herself looking into brown eyes gleaming with amusement. "Really, it is."
The smile settled some of her mortification, and Liara managed a shaky laugh. "It's just so ridiculous!"
"Not really." Shepard shrugged. "The asari prize genetic diversity. I suppose I should be flattered." She settled back on the couch, her smile becoming whimsical as she asked the question that Liara had been desperately hoping she wouldn't. "Have they picked out a mother, or do I get to choose?"
"They -" Goddess, could this get any more awkward? Why couldn't she lie to Shepard as easily she had learned to lie to so many others as the Shadow Broker? "They suggested that I would be a suitable candidate … unless you had another preference."
"Unless I had another preference?" A hint of irritation sparked in Lisbeth's eyes. "Did they ask you what your preference would be, or did they just volunteer you as a brood mare?"
"It's not like that, Beth," she protested. "Motherhood among the asari is seen as a great honor, and a great responsibility. It is never a choice that is forced upon anyone. I was actually a bit surprised that they would think me worthy, between being a pureblood and the crimes of my mother."
A hand slipped into hers. "Your mother fell victim to Sovereign's indoctrination," Shepard said firmly, "and I think that what you've accomplished should have made them think twice about the worth of purebloods. You'd make a wonderful mother, Lia, but what do you want?"
Liara looked at Shepard in shock. She'd expected Lisbeth to reject the entire notion out of hand, had been dreading being the one to bring the ridiculous proposition to the Commander. She certainly hadn't expected Shepard to seem to be actually giving the idea consideration. "I – I hadn't really thought about it," she managed, hoping that Lisbeth couldn't see through the lie. She had thought of little else since the matriarchs had spoken to her.
Shepard frowned. "Hell, Lia, you'd be the one carrying the baby, giving birth, raising her. You'd be the one making the century-long commitment. All I'd be doing is donating my genetic pattern. We don't even have to have sex." She paused, a faint look of consternation touching her features. "Do we?"
"No," Liara confirmed, still trying to comprehend how they had seemed to have moved so quickly past whether they should do it to how they could. "Asari reproduction does not require the sexual contact that most other species need, although it is frequently engaged in for the comfort of the partner, as well as mutual pleasure." She was trying to be clinical, but she could feel the blush trying to start again. Shepard would not require either of those things from her, had never seemed to need them from anyone.
Lisbeth nodded, seeming neither embarrassed nor surprised, though the look of concern remained. "And Feron? How is your bondmate going to react to you having someone else's child? Have you discussed it with him?"
"Not yet." Liara realized that she had managed to lie to Shepard about something. Two somethings, actually. She and Feron were lovers, but he was not her bondmate. She was unsure if it was pity or gratitude that had led her to accept his advances. She cared for him, and he had covered over an aching hole in her life … but he had never been able to fill it. And he knew it. Resentment and the psychological scars from two years of torture had twisted him into a dark shadow of who he had been, but Liara owed him too much to walk away. She was the reason he had been caught. She and Shepard. Lisbeth still saw him as the one who had sacrificed everything to keep her away from the Collectors and return her to life. There was so much that she didn't know, and Liara couldn't tell her. "I didn't even think … Beth, would you actually do this?"
Lisbeth shrugged. "Why not? I'm not likely to have a kid any other way." She spoke matter-of-factly, without a trace of bitterness, but it still made Liara's heart ache. It seemed unfair that the hero who had saved trillions of lives should be alone, even if Shepard seemed untroubled by it. She had numerous close friends: Liara, Ashley, Garrus, Wrex, Miranda … so many others who had fought alongside her against the Reapers. She'd had lovers, as well, but as far as Liara could tell, the two groups never intersected. "I can't think of any asari I'd trust more than you, but Feron's going to have to be okay with it first. I mean … assuming you even want to do it."
"I … I need to think about it," Liara managed, her mind spinning. "I didn't think you'd even be interested. You've never mentioned wanting to have children."
"There didn't seem to be much point before," Beth observed. "Not with the Reapers hanging over everything, but now ..." She trailed off, brown eyes softening. "Everybody wants a little bit of immortality, I guess. Never really thought I'd get the chance, but with you? You're my best friend. We've melded lots of times; this wouldn't be much different, would it?"
"A mating meld is deeper than anything we have shared," Liara told her. "It will involve more than just sharing thoughts. My nervous system will attune to yours as I imprint your genetic pattern. For a period of time, we will be as one. One mind, two bodies." She couldn't decide whether she wanted that information to dissuade Shepard or not, but she wasn't surprised when Lisbeth shrugged again.
"I've got nothing to hide from you," she said easily, her face open, and Liara knew it was true. Beth had trusted her with so many things over the years, just as Liara had trusted Lisbeth … with all but two secrets. "Think about it, talk to Feron about it and let me know. No pressure."
Liara nodded, forcing a smile. "No pressure," she agreed, though nothing could be further from the truth. She already knew that she would agree, no matter what Feron said, but she was going to have to figure out how, in the unparalleled intimacy of a meld that she had never before attempted, to conceal the fact that she was in love with her best friend.
Liara had known before she got home that Feron would be drinking; he hid it well in front of others, but he did little else these days. The only question was what turn his mood had taken under the alcohol's influence. Most often, he became maudlin and despondent, lost in his past; occasionally he grew sullen. Even more rarely, though with increasing frequency, his emotions took an ugly turn, blaming Liara for all that he had suffered at the Shadow Broker's hands.
She wondered sometimes, if she had been able to return his affections as he wanted her to, would he still have deteriorated so badly? There was no doubt in her mind, however, that she did indeed bear the responsibility for what had befallen him, so she accepted his mercurial shifts as no more than her due, though she tried to avoid words and actions that she knew would incite his rage.
Like telling him she had been to see Shepard.
She had never admitted her feelings for Lisbeth to him, had worked to keep them from him even during their limited melds, but he had been a skilled information broker before they met, and he had likely known even before they moved in together. He never spoke of it, leaving it festering in the silences between them until the alcohol brought it boiling to the surface.
Her fervent prayer that today would be one of his less volatile days went unanswered. When she entered the small London flat that they shared, he was sitting at the kitchen table, a half-empty bottle of whiskey in front of him.
"Where have you been?" His dark eyes all but lost in the ebony void of his scleras, he watched her coldly as she closed the front door, and she could feel the barely leashed violence simmering in the air. He had been no stranger to the harsher methods of obtaining information even before his capture, and the yahg had provided a brutally thorough first-hand completion to his education. He knew how to cause pain without leaving marks or doing lasting damage.
"I was visiting with Beth," she replied as casually as possible, despite her racing heart. When he was like this, showing fear only fueled the fire. She was going to have to tell him, but now was not the time. Tomorrow, maybe, after he had slept off his current mood and before he started drinking ...
"About the matriarch's proposal?"
She was the Shadow Broker. She had uncovered secrets that could topple governments, made decisions that had cost lives and saved them, ordered assassinations and prevented them, and done it all without flinching, but in that moment, she could only stare at him, frozen in shock and fear as he stood and walked around the table with a predator's stride, no hint of inebriation in his gait.
"Did you think I wouldn't find out?" he asked in the deceptively calm voice that she knew from experience presaged the worst. "Were you even planning on telling me, or were you just going to let me think it was mine?" He cocked his head, considering her. "It's not like I'd be able to tell, is it?"
"No!" she protested, finding her voice. The idea had never occurred to her. "I would never do that, Feron! But I needed to talk to Beth before I -"
He struck too quickly for the eye to follow. The blow to the solar plexus cut off her words and left her gasping for breath on the floor. She braced herself for worse, but he just stood over her.
"You think this will make her love you?" His voice dripped with a knowing contempt. "Give her a child, and the great and noble Lisbeth Shepard will forget that you are the Shadow Broker? That you spend your days swimming in the cesspool that she won't touch? Killing people, selling secrets, ruining lives … all for your dear Commander Shepard." He shook his head with an ugly laugh. "She'll let you dirty your hands in her name, but she'll never soil herself with the likes of you!"
"It's not like that!" she sobbed. He knew how to cause physical pain, but he knew the power of words, as well, and after the time they'd spent getting Shepard's body away from the Shadow Broker and almost a year as lovers, he knew every one of her vulnerabilities. Every insecurity, every secret shame.
"Yes, it is!" He sank to his knees beside her, suddenly earnest, pleading. "She'll never love you, never appreciate and understand all you've done for her, for the galaxy. I'm the only one who knows you, the only one who will love you. Let me love you, Liara." His hands caught her wrists in a painful grip, his expression a wretched parody of tenderness. "You can have Shepard's baby, just let me love you!"
No matter how much it sounded like a plea, Liara knew a command when she heard it. She swallowed her tears and nodded, let him pull her to her feet and guide her toward the bedroom, only able to be relieved that the worst was past, that there would be no beating. What would come next was familiar, bearable and seldom too physically painful, even if it was frequently humiliating, degrading. After two years of being under the Shadow Broker's control, helpless, Feron desperately needed to have uncontested control over something. Someone. She could give him that, because in his broken way, she knew that he did love her, and maybe … maybe this time, it would be enough.
But it was no more than she deserved.