Liara slowly lifted up her head as she started rubbing her eyes with the heel of her palm, trying to remove the last vestiges of drowsiness. She looked at the glowing clock near the bed and saw that there were still a few more hours before they reach Ilos.
The asari pulled the blanket and wrapped it around herself, she never really liked the cold and Shepard's cabin is colder than her cabin. When she asked Shepard why her cabin is colder than the rest of the ship the commander simply replied that she hated the heat.
This reply brought a small memory of the commander cussing up a storm when they first met on Therum. The heat of the mine made Shepard much more irritated than the Geth or the Krogan battlemaster that they fought.
The archeologist remembered Shepard's eyebrows scrunched together as sweat slowly dripped down from her forehead, her usually calm sea-green eyes looked stormy and seemed like it could petrify someone with just one look, a few strands of her vibrant crimson hair got loose from the tight bun that she wore, the black N7 armor looked like it had seen better days as there were a few burns and scratches.
The commander, the famous Lioness of Elysium looked like she had been in a warzone and Liara had never seen someone so radiant. She remembered from her browsing of some books in the extranet about how humans in the distant past primitive cultures worshipped goddesses with their primary aspect being war and seeing Cassandra Shepard, the asari maiden could imagine the commander as some war goddess of old.
As Liara was reminiscing her first memory of the Lioness of Elysium she spotted Shepard standing by her work table. Her back was turned from her and the maiden could see a few faded scars on the lioness' well-toned back, Shepard's beautiful crimson locks flowed in small waves that touched her shoulders. Her untied hair always made the asari long to run her fingers through those beautiful locks.
Liara slowly got up from the bed and walked towards her paramour, wrapping the blanket around her tightly as she ignored the cold floor. She must have approached more silently than she intended because when she wrapped her arms around Shepard, she felt her stiffen minutely but then she slowly relaxed as Liara started nuzzling her neck.
"Come back to bed Cass" she whispered.
Cassandra squeezed Liara's hand lovingly "I'm sorry, did I wake you up?"
"Not really. I just woke up and saw that you were not beside me"
"Can't sleep anymore, I guess a lot is on my mind"
"Do you want to talk about it?" The maiden replied, hoping to give her paramour a small amount of comfort. Liara heard Shepard sigh and her head moved to look at something in front of her. The asari glanced at where Shepard was looking at and she saw a small black frame and in the middle was a holographic picture of three people wearing the traditional Alliance formal wear.
The woman in the right side of the photo was obviously Cassandra Shepard though much younger and a little leaner than her current lithe frame, she had the same vibrant crimson locks that was tied neatly in a bun, the scar beside her left eye was absent, her fair complexion highlighted the smattering of freckles that ran across from her cheeks and the bridge of her nose, her arms were crossed as her enchanting sea-green eyes was looking exasperatedly at the man beside her.
The man in the middle was bigger and taller than Cassandra and the other man in the photo. The man looked like he could go tow to tow with a krogan and emerge victorious. His beefy arms were wrapped around Shepard and the other man's shoulders as he was grinning at the camera. Liara saw that the man has short dark blonde hair that was styled in a faded undercut. His gunmetal blue eyes were bright and amused. As Liara looked she could feel that she knew this man from somewhere and just couldn't remember it from the top of her head.
The last person was a little shorter than Cassandra, he was a bit underwhelming physically when compared to his companions who both screamed military at first glance. The man was lanky in frame, his coal black hair was in a buzz cut. The feature that really caught Liara's attention was the man's eyes, it was misty grey and had the look of someone thinking of a dozen thoughts at once. It reminded her of the salarians and how they would look when presented with an interesting conundrum. The man was holding his arm up with his two fingers shaped like a V. A small smirk decorating the tan man's face.
As Liara was about to ask the significance of the people in the photo she saw Shepard grab the frame, a small melancholic smile crossed her face. "These are my brothers".
The maiden looked at Shepard and the photo confusedly, the men in the pictures looked nothing like her lioness. She heard that humans were often related by blood even though they sometimes don't look like each other but she assumed that when someone said that they were brothers there would be at least some sort of physical resemblance. Liara voiced her confusion to which Shepard gave a small laugh.
"They are not related by blood but they are my brothers in every sense of the word"
Shepard took Liara's hand and led her back towards the bed. The lioness sat on the bed as she rested her back on the headboard and the maiden took the same position. Their hand was still intertwined and she could feel Shepard's thumb slowly rub her knuckles.
She glanced at the commander and saw her staring at the picture, seemingly lost in her thoughts and memories. Her eyes looked like a turbulent ocean, with indistinguishable emotions overlapping with one another. The asari maiden gently squeezed her paramour's hand in comfort which seemed to break the commander's musings.
"The blonde man is Erik Jorgenson the toughest bastard that I've ever met and the other is Michael Velasco the most talented N7 graduate since it's inception. I've been with the two of them ever since we all started as N1s" Cassandra looked at Liara and flashed her another small smile "We've been through a lot together, experienced a lot together, I have their back and they have mine, they are more than friends, they're my brothers"
Liara found the concept of choosing one's family to be very intriguing. Due to her work, she was often on Prothean dig sites and seldom got to interact and form any significant attachments like the one Shepard was describing. When she really thought about it the ground crew of the Normandy probably came the closest to the bonds that Shepard was describing. On the ground they always had each other's backs and covering each other's weaknesses with their own strengths.
The maiden remembered the small moments these past few months that drew the crew closer together. She recalled the first real conversation she had with the late Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams without the former's suspicion. Liara knew that she was a naïve at times but she knew how to read people and she could see Ash's distrust of her and the other alien crew members though she was good at hiding it.
She remembered when Kaidan, Tali and her bonded one sleepless night, talking about their respective art and culture, Wrex sharing his war stories as they sat around the mess hall enraptured with the old krogan's narrative, Garrus and Cassandra's bantering and trying to involve the whole squad, Kaidan and Garrus arguing with Shepard because they do not want her to drive the mako anymore while Ash was laughing at the commander's indignant expression, Tali and Garrus bickering as they wait for the slow Citadel elevator.
All these memories flashed through Liara's mind as she thought about Shepard's words. She then remembered the only family she had for the longest time.
Saren turned one of the most loving and caring people she knew into a monster. She grieved what her mother became but choose to remember what was once was, she looked back on the days that her mother exuded that loving presence as they played around in the park near her home, how being with her mother always felt like a warm wind that would cloak her from the cold Thessian night, and how recently that same feeling was coming from the ground crew of the Normandy.
Liara's inner musings was interrupted when she felt Shepard's head on her shoulders. She could smell a hint of lavender coming from the commander's hair and felt her damp head on her shoulders. The asari realized that Shepard already took a bath while she was sleeping and was a bit miffed that the commander was fragrant while she still probably smelled like sweat and sex.
"Can you tell me more about them?" Liara asked to distract herself from being a bit self-conscious.
Shepard let out a small hum while her nose scrunched up as she bit her lip, Tali affectionately called it Cassandra's thinking face which Liara found to be absolutely adorable though Ash used to say that it made her look constipated instead of thinking which earned a smack from the commander.
"I'll tell you how we first met" Shepard replied with a grin "It's a pretty interesting story, everything snowballed from there"
Liara simply nodded as Shepard preceded to tell her how in the first day of N-school the three of them got punished because they were fighting with each other. The lioness revealed that she was the one that started the fight because she decided to reprimand Erik for some small infraction and decided to 'throw the book at him'. To which Erik responded with something antagonistic towards her that raised her ire. Their arguments became much more heated to the point that the other recruits were trying to stop them before the instructors found out.
Shepard was the one who threw the first punch when Erik said that the only reason that she got invited to the N7 program was because of the higher ups trying to kiss up to her mother. He then tried to retaliate but was stopped by Michael yet the lanky boy was simply thrown aside by the massive man.
Michael landed near the trash bins which hit him making the contents spill on him, this didn't deter the him and he charged right back in between the two to prevent them from fighting even more. The sight of the three-way brawl was what the instructors saw and when asked who started it no one answered. It was for that reason that they were all punished.
Liara could only look in disbelief as Shepard finished her story. The commander she knew was calm, was rarely phased by taunts that easily, and was not that "by the books" kind of person.
"I was a lot a different back then" Shepard said sheepishly as she saw the incredulous look on her paramour's face.
"So, in the words of Joker 'you have a stick up your ass' back then" Liara smirked
"HA! During those early days I probably had the biggest stick up my ass"
"What changed?"
"They did" Shepard replied softly with an amused look on her face "I was uptight back then, to me rules were paramount, I thought by not following the set upon order everything will be messed up. I've always been a creature of order back then, you should've seen me back then everything was on a schedule and if there was any deviation I would lose it, but Michael and Erik showed me that regulations are not everything, that it's okay to relax and let my hair down"
"How did that happen?" The maiden asked curiously. This was pretty interesting to Liara, to know what Shepard was like before becoming the famous war hero that she was. "How did you go from that to becoming the closest of friends"
"It wasn't easy and it took a pretty long time" Shepard looked at the ceiling with a wistful expression as she got lost in the past "We hated each other at first, specifically me and Erik. I hated his devil may care attitude, his lack of discipline, and I especially hated it that he was damn good in CQC. It was like the guy was born to fight; he just had that fighter's instinct that no amount of hard work could reach. Even Michael who was often the only one that could match Erik would lose as much as he would win"
"Really? I could not believe that someone as big as Erik is could lose someone like Michael"
"Don't underestimate him, there's a reason why I said that Michael was the most talented N7 graduate ever. There's nothing that Michael could not do if he decided to put his mind in it, the guy was the fastest learner that I have ever seen, he absorbs things like a sponge and the only way that I could keep up with him was through sheer determination and hard work"
"Ohhh, anyways please continue" Liara hummed
"Michael and I got along very well, though we would compete from time to time it was always friendly. Him and Erik also really got along rather well as Michael was the only one that could really give him a proper challenge in terms of CQC. Erik and I started to begrudgingly respect each other when were N2s, so almost a year of insults and backhanded compliments which Michael weathered like a saint" Shepard gave a small laugh as more memories from her days in the N-school flashed through her mind. "It was after the small units' tactics test when were N4 that we really started acting like really close friends, I guess some things that you experience together really bring you closer"
"You miss them?"
"Yeah. I do"
"Maybe after we're done with this mission with Saren we should visit them, I'm sure they would be happy to see you" Liara suggested but winced when she saw Cassandra's sorrowful look.
"That would be hard considering Michael's dead and Erik is god knows where in the galaxy"
"I'm sorry"
"It's not your fault Liara"
"What happened to them?" As soon as the words left Liara's mouth she mentally berated herself for such a stupid and insensitive question, she was about to apologize again for that blunder when Shepard answered her.
"Michael died in Akuze caught by a thresher maw ambush, no one in his unit survived not even a body to bury. Erik was dishonorably discharged because of his actions in Torfan"
Liara gasped in shock, that's why Erik looked so familiar to her, she has seen his face for about a month in the news, the dreaded "Butcher of Torfan".
"You were friends with the Butcher…"
"Don't call him that!" Liara was surprised when Shepard raised her voice and the amount of venom in it. She looked at her lioness and saw bitter resentment in her eyes. It also held something that Liara could not determine.
"I know what the press said about Torfan but I don't believe that, the Erik I know would not do those things, he's not a psychopath" Cassandra muttered. "There has to be an explanation, I can feel it in my gut"
The maiden took the lioness' hand as she slowly rubs small circles upon it to calm her down "I won't call him by that dreaded moniker, if you believe him to be innocent then so shall I"
"Just like that? You trust my judgement that much?" Shepard looked up in surprise
"Of course. I've leaned to trust your judgement milara" Liara smiled beautifully as she leaned in and gave Cassandra a chaste kiss before going to pick up her clothes and start dressing "I'll see you later"
With those final words Liara left Shepard's cabin.
AN: Thank you for reading my story and I hoped you enjoy at least some part of it. I apologize for the quality of it, English is not my first language and this is my first time writing in a while.
So this plot bunny has been eating at me for a while, the premise is very simple in that what if all the other pre-service history and psych profile are real people and became someone close to Shepard? Shepard in this is a Spacer with the War Hero designation. Erik is Earthborn and Ruthless and Michael is the Colonist and Sole Survivor.
I've intentionally left some details vague because I plan on exploring and expanding this into other stories set in this universe. The next story would probably deal with Shepard and Erik's reunion and would be set upon the ME2 timeline.
I don't own the Mass Effect franchise