Liara sat on her heels in front of the closet, almost meditative, planning her next move.
Where to start?
"You should have done this a long time ago." He said.
She sighed heavily, shutting her eyes and concentrating on the task ahead. You shouldn't be here, she thought.
"I'm only here to help." He told her.
She slowly opened her eyes and craned her neck to where he was leaning against the wooden doorframe, so close she could catch the scent of his freshly laundered clothes. He smiled and she turned away again.
"Please." She said, her voice trembling. "I need you to go."
He knelt beside her and she could feel his heavy hand on her shoulder, urging her to look at him again.
"I'm only here because you want me here. We'll get this done and then I'll be gone."
I don't want that either, she thought, and asked the Goddess if she was losing her mind.
One year. One year to the day, he had left this world and entered the next. One year ago she had shut the closet door where his clothes hung in order, garments that needed washing still sitting in the basket, various other articles shoved into the back to be forgotten by them both.
How much time was too much time to leave these things untouched? What are the rules for mourning, for moving on, for discarding the final remains of a loved one lost?
She should have done this sooner, she thought. She should have followed the advice so many insisted on giving. She could have heeded their counsel, as they'd all done this before, some of them more than once. But she had been comfortable in her grief and with the memory of him haunting her waking hours each time she stepped into his office or their bedroom. His scent lingered on his well-worn sweaters and coats; she could feel his fingers on the covers of his books.
She was tired of well-meaning people, telling her it was time she got over being heartbroken. There were some things a body wasn't meant to get over. No, she wouldn't wallow in sorrow, or let it drag on; but she knew it never really would go away.
Rising, she took another breath and stood, reaching for the closest garment, neatly hung and parade ready.
"What are you going to do with that?" He asked, leaning against the closet's sliding door.
She shook out the uniform and placed it in a garment bag. "They want it for a museum. We buried you in your dress blues so I'll give them this instead. They made me replicas of your medals so we could bury those with you."
Placing the bag gently on the bed, she finally locked eyes with the specter of her dead bondmate across the room. "I wanted Raea to have them," she answered before he had the chance to ask why she had replicas of his Alliance medals.
"Museum, huh?"
"Yes. It's on Earth, near the Alliance HQ in Vancouver."
"Gonna to go there?"
She managed a smile as she continued rummaging through his things. "Eventually. When I'm ready. Which may be a while considering I'm standing here talking to a ghost."
"Yeah but at least it's a handsome ghost." He said, grinning as he sidled up to her once more.
She laughed, her smile slowly fading as her eyes reddened and the damn threatened to break. She felt betrayed by her mind and her memory. She could see the lines that formed on his face when he smiled, she could hear the playfulness in his voice when he was making a joke. But all of this was her doing, she knew. She had lost her mind, clearly.
"Liara." His voice was gentle and coaxing, and she hated her mind for that too.
"Goddess, please," she whispered.
"Liara, you know you won't need me here forever. Just for today, just for right now."
"I am going insane."
"Hey," he said quietly, sitting down beside her on the floor. He even grunted when he sat, favouring his good knee. "You know the voices in your head aren't real. Which is more than I could say." He joked. Goddess, why was she making him joke like this.
"Come on. Let's get to work." He didn't offer her a hand when he stood, because she knew she could not take it if she had. And if she could, she would have pulled him into her and held him tight, pressed her nose into the nape of his neck and inhaled the scent of his skin. If she concentrated she could feel strong hands on her flanks and her back, his fingers pressing into her, holding her firm to his body, the roughness of his unshaven chin against her crest. Goddess, she wanted him to offer her that hand.
She organized his clothes into neat piles and packed them into preservation bags. Her daughter had asked for various jackets and t-shirts of her fathers to keep, so she placed them neatly in boxes and left them in her bedroom for pick up the next time she could visit. She marked most of his things for disposal, but kept a few for herself. She smiled when she pulled out the familiar zip-up sweater and slid her arms through it, remembering all the times he playfully lamented giving up his favourite sweater.
"I loved that you wore it," he told her. "It would smell like you for days."
She pulled it closer to her and inhaled, wishing she could do the same.
Much like a archeological dig, she continued to explore, catalogue and discover hidden treasures.
A white cotton button up shirt two sizes too small. "You bought me that when I first came to visit you here, when you thought I wouldn't bring any civilian clothes." She didn't know he owned civilian clothes.
A cap meant for Asari to wear, displaying the team logo for Armali's biotiball team. It had fit him poorly and he wore it often. "Raea insisted I had to have some team swag and that was the only thing they had, I swear!"
There was a shoebox in the back of the closet that intrigued her when it's weight seemed wrong. "Where are the shoes – oh goddess."
"Oh. I remember that." He smiled wide, his eyes hinting at excitement.
"What is this doing in here?" She asked herself.
"You told me you didn't want Raea to find it. Though, she probably has her own…"
"Probably." She muttered.
She pulled the cat suit out of the box and held it against her, measuring it against her body.
"That was a great night." He smirked, appearing in front of her again.
She remembered purchasing the dancer's one-piece on the extranet and surprising him one evening. When her performance ended, she surprised him again by demanding reciprocation. She remembered laughing hysterically when he tried to pull the fabric over his legs, begging he stop before he stretched the legs beyond repair. She had settled for his performance of a striptease in a bath towel instead.
When the last pieces were collected, she gathered them in their boxes and walked to his office. She kept his office closed to the rest of the house, the memories there too fresh.
She placed the boxes beside his encased hardsuit, burnt and broken, bearing the scars of his final run to the crucible. Looking at it sent shivers down her spine, she never understood why he insisted on keeping it.
"It was a reminder, I guess. A reminder of what it was all for."
She stepped back and tried to admire it, but couldn't stop her mind from flashing images of his lifeless body on Alchera, his catastrophic injuries after the reapers had fallen.
"Museum?" He asked.
"Yes. I can't keep it here. It's too much."
"I understand."
He walked over to his desk and placed his hand on the frame that held his tags. "What about these?"
"I'm keeping those," she said reverently, picking them up off the desk, remembering their reunion and reconciliation after Hagalaz.
"A good memory."
"A very good memory." She agreed.
He sat on the desk and smiled at her.
"It wasn't so hard, then, was it?"
She hadn't finished, but somehow the items in the office seemed easier to hold onto than his clothes. Perhaps it was the connection to his body, or the way they held his scent. The things in the office, they were just things. Some of them held meaning to her and her daughter, and most of them held meaning to only him.
"Raea will keep most of these things. I only need a few." She told him.
"I'm always going to be here." He reminded her. "I'm always in your heart. You don't need things to keep me."
She wanted to rush into him again, but settled for locking eyes with the apparition.
"I love you." She told him.
He stood and approached her, she swore she could feel his presence.
"I'm yours." He reminded her.
She turned and left him in the office, closing the door behind her, strolling to the kitchen to prepare a cup of tea. She would sit on the terrace and take in the sunset and contemplate her meeting today. A good idea after an afternoon with a ghost.
The chime of her omni-tool interrupted her as she lay in her hammock, listening to the waves crashing against the rocks below.
She answered the video call and a striking young asari appeared on the screen. She had her father's brown eyes and her mother's celestial nose. "Raea, how are you."
"Mother, I'm fine. I called to see how you were. It's a year today."
"I know. I'm fine, darling. I have some things for you, next time you visit."
"Well," she looked away sheepishly and Liara braced for disappointing news. "I hope you'll be okay with this, but I'd like to come stay with you for a while. If that's okay. The company is here in Armali and I could stay with them on the campus but I know you're alone up there, and if it's okay…"
Liara smiled to herself. "You can stay here whenever, for as long as you want, you know that, my darling."
"Good, because I'm right outside."
Liara laughed, setting her tea on the stone floor and rocking out of her hammock to answer the door. "You're a lot like him, you know."
"I know." She smirked.
They embraced at the door, holding each other tightly, silently acknowledging the grief they both held. He was there again but standing outside the house, near his daughters cab, smiling at them both. She kissed her daughter's cheeks and looked back to find him, but he was gone again.
"Are you okay, mother?" Raea asked as she pulled back from Liara's embrace. "You look like you've seen a ghost."
Liara smiled back at her reassuringly, walking them both into the house. "I'm fine," she told her. "Just the specter of a memory."