Liara

"I…don't think…" Shepard panted, dragging her fingers through her sweat soaked hair, "…I'm ever…going to get tired…of that."

"My beautiful commander." I whispered, lacing my hand around her neck, pulling her into a kiss that tasted of salt and satiation. "Breaking all the rules."

Shepard rolled onto her back and stared at the ceiling. A smile crept over my face as I watched her breasts rise and fall with her breathing.

"Fuck 'em." she sighed, stretching her muscles and burrowing deeper under the covers.

Her brow creased and she inhaled sharply as she moved. Alarmed, I propped myself up on my elbow and rested my hand on the wide swath of scar tissue on her left side.

"Does it still pain you?" I asked, worried.

Due to my lover's apparent penchant for life-threatening situations,I had been researching human physiology and attempting to learn as much as I could from Doctor Chakwas. However, I had not learned enough to ascertain whether or not Shepard would still be feeling the pain of her injuries. And, if she were, if it was natural or something to worry over.

"No." Shepard relaxed and turned her eyes to mine. "It's still a little sensitive is all."

"Are you sure?" I questioned.

"You questioning my integrity, T'Soni?" she teased, her silver eyes sparkling with laughter and light and the pleasant haze of our earlier love-making.

"No, commander." I schooled my face into seriousness. "I am questioning your honesty."

Shepard's arm reached out and laced around my shoulders, pulling me alongside her. I pressed every part of my body against hers, resting my head beneath her chin, over her chest, listening to the pulsating vibrations of her heartbeat. I adored the heat of her skin as it radiated against mine. I loved the variegated textures of her skin beneath my fingertips.

A low hum of contentment left her lips and I smiled as I felt the vibration of the sound through my crest. Our mission had taken us far from Citadel space, far from the edicts of the Council and the interference of the Alliance. We had discovered a few outposts of the geth that remained after Saren's invasion and dealt with them summarily, but we continued searching. It seemed more enemies could always be found.

Shepard spoke often with Captain, now Councilor Anderson. After the ugly confrontation and the revelation of Udina's attempted manipulation of Shepard, the council had decided to appoint another representative. Shepard had endorsed her former commanding officer, much to Udina's chagrin.

The repair of the Citadel was underway, though it looked to be a project that would take years. The Council was still in uproar, attempting to focus on all the worlds that had suffered from Sovereign's invasion, in addition to repairing the Citadel and taking action against the non-Council races who had taken advantage of the uproar to attempt to invade. The batarian Hegemony had become a problem, as well as mercenary and gang activity the galaxy over.

It still shocked me that I couldn't care less. Not in the case of those who had suffered…my heart ached for their losses, for the conflict had visited on me my own grievous loss…but I could not summon any caring for those in power who had turned a blind eye countless times to the woman who did nothing but stand before them and speak the truth.

"Something wrong?" Shepard asked. "You went all tense."

"I am merely thinking." I told her, looking up, feeling the comfort that always washed over me when I fell into her eyes.

Her hand reached up and she traced her fingers over my facial markings. She insisted on calling them eyebrows, even though I told her it was an incorrect term. She persisted in believing that if she named them as such, eventually they would become fuzzy. Here, away from the dire sense of urgency that had dogged us as we chased Saren across the galaxy, more layers of the woman Serena Shepard was had been revealed.

Beneath the heart of titanium and dedication, beneath the eloquent words she could speak, beneath the nightmares that haunted her waking and sleeping hours…there dwelt a simple, beautiful woman. She had a teasing sense of humor, a way of silent understanding, an empathy that reached further than the subtle glimpses I had seen along the way.

I had loved her before these revelations. I loved her even more now.

"What are you thinking of, álainn anam?" she asked, and the Gaelic endearment served to make my heart kick in my chest, as it always did.

"All that is amiss with the galaxy at this moment." I replied, knowing I could keep nothing from her and having no desire to.

Shepard's eyes darkened, but she smiled. "Come here." she guided my head back against her and we both looked out of the window, at the black void of space, the distant stars. "Look outside, tell me what you see."

"Stars." I answered. "Space. Planets. Why do you ask, my love?"

"Just wondering if we see the same things."

"Do we?" I asked.

"Not really." Shepard smiled. "I can see the thoughts whirring through your mind, racing at lightspeed. You look outside at space and you see the blundering chaotic swirl of life, of cause and effect, you think about the secrets lost to time and the trials endured right now." her hand idly moved across my crest in a soothing motion. "All I see is the peace that I can't find anywhere else. I see an expanse so wide that I can let go of everything that ever hurt me. And…and…" her voice darkened and I looked up, shocked to see a perfect, single tear sliding down her cheek.

"I finally have someone to share that with." she turned her eyes to mine and consecrated her words with a chaste kiss. "I…I can forget everything in this moment, in this place, except the miracle that is you, and your hands, and your heart…your very presence in my life."

Your eyes are like stars…I remembered her words after we had woken from a meld after the horrible skirmish on Edolus with a thresher maw.

At the time I had thought it a mind-addled compliment, a sweet nothing from an overtaxed, concussed brain and an over-extended heart. It had warmed me then, but hearing her definition of what the stars meant, hearing her gratitude for this moment between us…my heart ached as I fell in love with her once more.

We had known each other for less than a year, and I already knew that I did not want to spend any time separate from her. I had once felt the ache of her loss, and realized how deeply she dwelt in me…losing her would be worse than death.

I pressed my forehead against hers, inhaling her scent, joining my lips with hers in a quiet, passionate kiss. I pulled away only to breathe, lost as I saw a light in her silver eyes that always weakened my knees and set my heart racing.

"I love you, Liara T'Soni." she whispered.

The woes of the galaxy faded from my mind. The thoughts of war and battle dimmed. The mission I accompanied her on seemed as nothing but something trivial to pass the time. Serena Shepard had become my world, my all-encompassing love, and I did not know how to put the all-consuming, inexorable passion I felt for her into words.

The words she spoke were simple, but to me…they were everything. They were everything because they fell from her lips. She had lost everything, time and again, and nearly given her life for a galaxy who did not know the measure of her sacrifices for them. Even her own people could not measure it, because her pain seemed so untouchable. But I had seen inside her mind. I had walked with her in her darkest moments. I had felt her heart bleed. I lay beside her in the night when she shivered with nightmares made all the worse by the fact that they were memories.

But she could still say those words. Her wounded, battered heart could render all of its feeling, all of its emotion with such unshakeable honesty that my spirit shivered when she spoke them.

"I love you too." I replied, and her silver eyes caught fire.

The next kiss between us was the slow heating of a forge, the rekindling of coals that would never die out. Desire flooded my entire being as audible words became too little and our souls screamed to share themselves, to merge and twine and become one.

"Do we…have time?" I asked as her lips feathered down my neck.

"Yes." she replied. "We're still a few hours out from Alchera."