Liara

I had expected the words and anticipated the anger in her tone. I myself did not feel the need for anger. I did not have the need for explanations. If Zhira did, in fact, understand the addiction that drove me, then surely the question she asked, with ire in her tone and frustration in her eyes, was rhetorical. I kept the syringe in my hand and met the fury in her amythest eyes, comprehending the coals that burned there. What I did not comprehend was the sorrow in her gaze, or the stance that was not aggressive, but protective in nature.

"You already know, Zhira." I answered, surprised by the deadly calm in my voice. "And since you know, why do you ask me foolish questions?"

"Because you're deaf to the part of you that's asking them." Zhira replied. "And you damn well need to hear it from someone."

"You're a fool." I whispered.

"I'm beginning to think so." Zhira answered. "Is that going to kill you, Liara?" she gestured to the needle, the deliverance, in my hands. "Is there enough in there to take you to oblivion?"

"Of course not." I glared at her, incredulous.

Zhira leaned against the open door, her entire position now one of nonchalance. "Then why even bother?" she asked. "What good is the high going to do you if you just crash down again? It's a vicious cycle, Liara. It'll eat you alive, and since you obviously don't find life without it worth the living, you might as well just stop breathing."

"How dare you be so callous?" I felt a flicker of wrath kindling in some distant part of my soul. "How dare you cheapen the life you know nothing about?"

"I'm not the one shoving a needle in your veins, Liara." Zhira replied, stoking the spark building within me. "I'm not cheapening your life. You are. You're pretty damn far gone. You're worse than I was when I got dragged back to sobriety."

Her eyes turned from me and she stared at the floor.

"What are you doing?" I asked, disregarding the needle, distracted by her dismissive, abrasive behavior.

"If you don't want to exist, I won't force you to." Zhira answered, eyes still fixed on the ground. "I can't fight your battles for you. I'll help you, but only if you want that help. You think I didn't know you have that shit stashed all around this apartment? I used to be an addict, Liara. I know all the hiding places." She consistently refused to look in my direction and it angered me. "You've got two in here. One behind that tile, the other hidden behind the towels. Obvious, but you don't have guests over, so it works. Also, in your closet, there's a pair of boots you don't wear, but they never gather dust. You've got a box stashed in one of them, maybe both. One in the refrigerator, another in the top right cabinet over the sink, probably tucked into an empty box of food you don't eat. How am I doing so far?"

The coal in my spirit glowed, burning brighter, hotter, and more fierce, scouring away the haze that had clouded my clarity and identity.

"All too well." I snarled. "What will you say next, Zhira? Some beautiful incantation about how life is worth the living? About how you understand the pain I have been through? About how I am casting away my life on some feckless, errant whim!?"

"I don't believe that at all." Zhira replied, surprising me. Her eyes lifted from the floor, locked on my own, and burned. "You talk in your sleep. You say things that…that shred me in two. I don't know who Serena was but…"

"Don't!" I shouted, and the syringe flew out of my hands as biotic energy swirled around them. "Don't you dare say her name!"

"Liara," Zhira's eyes, full of worry, flared, and she lifted her hands in a gesture of what looked like supplication. "Liara, stop that right now. You're still too weak; you can't use biotics!"

My lips curled up in a sneer. I had reached the edge of biotic exhaustion before. I had helped bring down a Reaper. My lover and I had staggered from the detritus of the ending of an enemy so powerful we still did not comprehend its scope and range. I had seen the dead walking among us again. I had shared words with them. I had flung the power of the Shadow Broker back in his face and made him a failure. I would not be called weak.

I built the energy in my hands, not intending an attack, but simply to disprove this asari who had, without my blessing or wishes, inserted herself into the intimacies of my existence.

She does not know me! She knows nothing of what I have done, what I have endured, what I have been through. Her words are harsh, barbed, and even though I can hear the truth in them there are other truths that she does not realize!

"Liara." Zhira's voice sounded deadly, sharp, worthy of the wariness the T'Aryn name inspired. "Rein it in, now."

"You have no idea, Zhira T'Aryn." I whispered, holding a ball of swirling energy in my hand, letting blue wisps of power lick down my body and along the floor. "You have no idea."

"Give me one." she offered. "But please, stop. Your body cannot handle what you're doing!"

"The hell it can't."

Zhira shook her head in frustration, though a grin I did not understand played about her lips. "And in three…two…one." she mumbled.

My heart kicked in my chest and pain seared through my temples, stunning me. I barked out a gasp as the biotic energy faded into nothing. My knees trembled and my vision swam and suddenly the floor was staring at me as I fell in what seemed slow motion. I winced, waiting for the harsh impact of full collapse.

Strong arms wrapped around my waist, arresting my fall. I stumbled into a body made of hard lines and raw strength. There was no softness in Zhira T'Aryn's form, but in her embrace there was a gentleness that I had not felt since Serena's touch.

"Breathe." she counseled, and I inhaled, feeling the air scour my nose and throat.

Zhira went to her knees, easing me onto the floor. I felt the warmth of her skin against the chill of mine as I gulped down air.

"You're so fucking stubborn." Zhira's rough voice calmed the rapid beating of my heart. "And you're doing well. Why go back to that shit?" she asked, staring at the three fallen syringes on the floor. "You're better than that, Liara."

"Am I?" I wondered. "I no longer know who I am, Zhira."

"That's your mistake." I could hear warmth and empathy in her tone. "Right now, your mind is locked in who you were. Those dreams that make you toss and turn and…Goddess…scream…you're sorting out the past. Let them do what they're meant to do, Liara. And I know it is the furthest thing from pleasant…"

"You've no idea." the words shivered out between my lips and I looked with longing at the syringes on the ground.

"No, I don't." Zhira replied. "But you can give me one. And if you do, I'll make you a promise."

"I don't want a promise, Zhira." I said, remembering all the words given that had been broken and shattered when the Normandy caught fire.

It's time…I heard my lover's words in my mind, the words she had spoken on the last day of her life.

Perhaps I heard them wrong, I thought, trembling in Zhira's embrace. Perhaps it was not Serena anticipating her death…but facing the ultimate reckoning. In fire and chaos, she reconciled her identity and her past, all that she had been, looking to the future, and accepting the burdens that command placed on her shoulders. Her sacrifice was…something she required of herself. Perhaps it was not death that she greeted, but her own identity; in herself she saw someone who would not save her own life for love, but be willing to give it for the lives and loves of others. Is that what she accepted when she said those words?

"You may not want a promise." Zhira's words pulled me from my thoughts. "But I think you need this one."

"What is your promise, Zhira?" I asked.

Zhira got to her feet and offered me her hand. I accepted her strength as she helped me stand, and she turned me towards the mirror. Her hands rested on my shoulders and when I averted my gaze from the stranger inside my eyes, Zhira took my chin in her hand and made me look into the mirror.

"If you choose now," she said, "to reclaim your life, then I can make you a promise. You will, some day, perhaps in a year, a decade, or even centuries, look back on this time. And when you do, Liara T'Soni, I promise you that you will laugh. You will laugh in triumph over the sorrow and pain. You will laugh for the joy of your choice and its success. If you cannot find words, Liara, then show me. Show me what hurts you so much that you want to die. Show me what makes you fear being fully conscious of the world. You can trust me, and I promise you, I swear, that if you face what haunts you and push yourself through it, you will laugh again."

I stared at the face in the mirror, and I wanted Zhira's words to be true. I wanted to laugh again. I wanted to live again. I simply…I simply did not know how. But she had kept her first promise. She had not left me. If she was honest in that, perhaps truth lay in this promise as well.

I glanced down at the syringes on the floor, then back to the face in the mirror. I felt Zhira's hands, solid and sure, on my shoulders.

"Get rid of them, please." I whispered, knowing she would understand. "It's time."