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Shepard sat on the couch in the observation room, leaning forward with her elbows on her knees, looking out at the stars. Behind her, she heard the doors slide open, and then close again, but she didn't look around. When Liara came to sit beside her, she said, "I thought it would be you."

"I couldn't sleep. Those people …"

"I know."

They had found their missing scientist at a mining facility. He had been long dead, killed by the employees—only they hadn't known anything about it. They had been under the control of the entity known as Leviathan. For ten years, they had worked every day and known nothing, because of the artifact they had unearthed.

"Ten years," Shepard said. "Can you imagine? Waking up to find that you've lost an entire decade out of your life?"

Liara hesitated, then said, "I would have thought you could imagine that."

"Oh. Huh." It was hard to remember that she had once lost two years, lying in a coma in a Cerberus facility being rebuilt. "I suppose it isn't that different. When I think of how much happens in the course of a few months, two years, ten, seem like a lifetime. Do I even have ten more years?" She turned her head to look at her friend. "That must seem foolish to you. You must think in terms of centuries rather than decades."

"A minute is a minute. It may be a smaller piece of my life than it will be of yours, but it exists for me just as it does for you." Liara shrugged. "For that matter, an asari is as vulnerable as a member of any other species. Yes, I could live another nine hundred years … or I could be lost tomorrow in any one of a hundred different ways. I would not want to lose ten years of my life. The days are too interesting to miss any of them."

"Do you think I should have stayed with him?" Shepard asked abruptly.

"Thane?"

"Yes. Do you think he resents that I went to Earth for the tribunal and left him? Do you think he is angry every time the door closes behind me as I leave the Citadel?"

Liara smiled. "You are borrowing trouble."

"Maybe."

"Thane knows who you are. He has always seen you very clearly. You would not be the woman he loves if you gave up your work to stay with him and watch him die—nor would he wish you to do so. A person cannot let go under scrutiny, and Thane is ready to let go." Liara put a gentle hand on Shepard's back. "Given the force of your personality, you might well keep him longer than he wishes to remain. It is very difficult to say no to you."

"You make me sound terrible."

"Not terrible. Merely incredibly focused and determined. Those are good qualities."

"Unless they make the people I love want to send me away."

Liara looked at her closely. "Do you think that? Can you possibly believe such a thing?"

"You just said I would interfere with Thane letting go."

"Because you make him want to live, and he cannot, Juniper," Liara said gently. "He loves you. It pains him to leave you—but he has no choice."

Shepard winced against the pain that came to her, icy fingers around her heart. "I know that. I do. It's just—"

"You are J.R. Shepard, and you don't lose. Not when you want something very badly," Liara finished for her. "It is why we follow you, because we know that your heart is in the right place and you follow it to make things better … and because of you we can help. It does make you rather formidable, however, and that you are simply going to have to live with." Her hand squeezing Shepard's shoulder took any sting out of the words. "It is why you have a chance to do what no one in history, recorded or otherwise, has done: defeat the Reapers. Thane knows that. He knows that you are needed out here, that the galaxy requires your service and your sacrifice, as it has before."

"As it undoubtedly will again," Shepard said bitterly.

"Perhaps. Or perhaps you will be able to rest this time."

"With whom?" Shepard asked softly. "Thane will be gone before the Reapers are, I feel that. Kolyat hardly needs an alien stepmother coming in to change his life at this late date. You have your work, Garrus has Palaven, Wrex has Tuchanka, Tali—who knows where Tali even is." Kaidan's name was on the tip of her tongue, but for some reason she couldn't voice it, and she was relieved when Liara didn't mention him.

"You will find someone, or something, who needs you. You have so much to give—and the galaxy is a large place."

"Are you counseling me to find someone else to love when my husband isn't even in his grave yet?" Thane would approve, Shepard thought. He wouldn't want her to imagine a barren, lonely future even now, but she had a hard time considering what it would be like to be with anyone else. She just wanted him, and that was the one thing she couldn't have.

"No," Liara told her. "You could find a child, or a cause, or a place that you love. It does not have to be a lover."

"I … suppose you're right." Shepard sat up straight, clearing her throat. "Duty calls. No point speculating on what to do once the Reapers are defeated until we get there."

"A truly Shepard response."

"Do you think if we find Leviathan, it will agree to help? It seems that it never has before."

"If anyone can, you can."

"I appreciate your confidence." Shepard laid her hand over the one Liara was resting on her shoulder and squeezed it. "Thank you for being here. I'm not sure—I wouldn't want to be doing this without you."

"I wouldn't have missed it for every star in the galaxy," Liara assured her. "I'm with you until the end of this—and into what comes after."

Getting to her feet, Shepard said, "Well, then, I suppose we should get back to Tuchanka and figure out what the Primarch's son is doing there. One more stop on the way to finishing this."

With renewed energy, she left the room and headed for the cockpit.