Liara

"Heart in my home

I will seek forever

Light of the dawning

home of the stars.

Goddess, your call

I answer and always

return to my home,

safe from the seeking.

Though body be bound

my heart, it is endless,

and gravity's sway

shall hold me no more."

The gentle song drew me further into consciousness. I felt the warm rush of a friend's breath across my crest, the strength of the arms that cradled me close. My head rested on Zhira's shoulder, and blurry eyes watched her chest rise and fall with the rhythm of her breathing.

"My mother…" I rasped. My voice felt old and disused, my throat raw, "…once sang me that song."

Zhira nodded. "Whose mother did not?" she idly wondered.

The words she sang were the lyrics of an ancient asari lullaby. Our histories held that it was penned when the first asari left her daughter on the day our race first ventured from Thessia into the stars. I always thought it odd that the last words were not of returning to the safety and love of home, but of continuing to journey beyond the planet home that was all we had known for millennia.

"Welcome back, Liara." Zhira whispered, distracting me from my thoughts.

I sat up a bit and caught her eyes, looking for something I obviously did not yet realize. "What do you mean?" I asked.

"I tried you pull you out of the meld." Zhira answered. "But you didn't leave. It's been an hour since you let me go…I was beginning to get worried."

I could see the truth of her words stamped on her features…amethyst eyes held nothing but concern. I thought I saw the tracks of old tears on her cheeks, but could not be certain of it. I wanted to alleviate what anxiety I witnessed.

"I am all right." I assured her.

Zhira shook her head. "You really aren't." she managed. "How did you deal with what I saw screaming in your brain?"

I remembered when I learned what it was to have a sense of humor in dark, dire times.

"I really didn't." I smiled. "Or do you not recall pulling me, half dead, off of the floor at Eternity?"

"Goddess, Liara." Zhira's eyes pierced right through me. "You didn't even cry for her? Just…just kept running from one thing to the next until you found the drugs. Then you abused the shit out of them."

I did not really register her last sentences, because I focused on her question. In a flash, every memory that I had relived in the meld blitzed through my mind like a bullet. I saw all that I had done, over and over again, ripping into the parts of me that I had thought were healed over…I was wrong.

I started breathing faster as I realized the truth of Zhira's words. I never had…I never had…

How is it possible? I asked myself amidst the barrage of memories that would not cease. How is it possible that I never…that I never mourned Shepard?

The forgotten wounds in my soul ripped open. Black, thick infection spilled out into my heart and I let out a shriek of pain that inhabited all states of my being. Physical. Mental. Emotional. Spiritual. Everything hurt as fresh as it had that day on the Normandy. I had not healed. I had not recovered. I had not even begun.

I had hidden. I had run away. I had thrown my mind and body into whatever provided a distraction. It was why I had gotten lost in the meld; why I had spent an hour fighting through every recollection all over again, reliving everything. I had gotten so lost…lost in the life I had once lived, in the company of those I once lived it with.

I moved away from Zhira's embrace and curled into a tight ball on the bed, shuddering, shaking, not knowing where to go. I felt exactly as I did aboard the salarian STG ship that had saved us from the destruction of the Normandy. Adrift. Suffering. Cast aside. I needed to find somewhere safe, somewhere alone, somewhere to hide. I needed to...

"Move." Zhira commanded, though her tones were gentle. "Liara, move your ass, right fucking now."

When I did not uncurl, Zhira grasped my ankles and pulled my body straight out across the bed, refusing to let me wrap around myself once more. She yanked me down to her and straddled me, her powerful thighs on either side of my waist.

"Look me in the eye, Liara T'Soni." she ordered and, helpless to even think of resisting, I obeyed. "Don't you ever do that again." Zhira said, her voice more serious than I had ever heard it. "Don't you ever curl up again and try to build a wall to keep the world out."

"Zhira…"

"No." she shook her head, adamant. "You can't do something like that in front of me again. Not after I've seen who you are and what you've done. I thought I knew what hard times were. But what I saw in your head was the definition of the human's hell if ever there was one. I knew when I saw you in Eternity that something drove you to the drugs, but I swear to the Goddess, Liara…if I'd lived through that, drugs wouldn't have done it for me. I'd've killed myself."

"I nearly did." I mumbled. "Please, Zhira…let me go. Let me curl into myself and grieve."

"No." she insisted. "If you believe what you tell me you believe, if you believe what you saw in the goddess-damned Citadel, then you honor that woman you loved properly. Love doesn't cry in the dark, huddled into itself like a wounded varren. Love is raw. Love is agonizing. Love saves a life and makes you strong and when it gets taken away you're allowed to fall the fuck apart, but don't you ever dare hide, Liara T'Soni. Because the woman you loved would have cried for you. I can see that in her, even if I only saw her in your memories. Give her that same courtesy. Love her like she loved you, because dammit, Liara…that woman risked everything for you."

I shook my head, not believing her. "That…that's not true." I said. "She risked everything for the galaxy, because she wanted to save them. The Council was wilfully blind, they ignored the evidence and..."

"I'm not talking about that." Zhira interrupted.

Confusion whispered through me, needing clarity. "What do you mean then?" I wondered.

"I've met some Alliance officials in my day." Zhira said. "Mostly when Kariah's business crossed into human colonies. They didn't like me all that much. We may be getting along better with the humans, but xenophobia still runs strong, especially for those who remember the First Contact War. I guarantee you, Liara, if the wrong admiral or captain found out that you and Shepard were together…she'd've been put through hell. After the First Contact, they put regulations on the books that said fraternization with any alien of any species was illegal and punishable under their Uniform Code of Military Justice. They've softened on that since then, but those regulations are still in place. The ambassador, that Udina fuck, could have grounded Shepard and stripped her command on a technicality, if he'd known about the two of you."

Her eyes held no dishonesty. My entire mind went blank. I had never known such a thing. Shepard had never told me. Under an archaic statute, her enemies could have taken her military career…simply because she cared for me.

Goddess…I thought back and remembered…she kissed me on the Citadel, in the Normandy's docking bay. That area is filled with surveillance cameras and the like.

"She must have loved you beyond sanity." Zhira whispered. "Because she risked her life for the galaxy, Liara, but she risked everything that she personally held dear for you."

It became more difficult to breathe. I felt the weight of Zhira hovering over me, but it was nothing compared to the heaviness on my chest. The weight of that had a bladed edge, piercing the muscles, flooding my spirit, racing through my veins alongside the pent-up infection held at bay by months of running."

"I…I can't…I can't…"

"You can." Zhira insisted. "Listen to the truth I told you and let them slap you across the face. Let them put a knife in your heart and let that blade twist. Feel it, Liara. Feel it and let it touch you. Scream. Cry. Do whatever you want. But cry openly. Grieve with purpose. Because if you don't, you'll put your tears in a needle and shoot it in your veins again and you'll kill the valiant, courageous asari I saw inside your mind."

I wanted to run. I wanted to flee. I wanted to curl up again and build a fortress of my body against the world. But Zhira held me down, kept me still, forced me to look into her eyes and listen to every word that she said. I let them strike me. I let myself bleed from them. My lips trembled. My eyes burned.

"What she called you." Zhira spoke, her voice calm and comforting. "'Álainn anam'. What does that mean?"

My entire body began to shake.

"B…beautiful soul." I stammered out.

Zhira moved off of me, sitting beside my prone form, taking my hand, looking me in the eye. She smiled and it was beautiful, kind, and understanding.

"Yeah." she nodded. "I can definitely see that. You're worth the way she loved you, Liara. Even now, you're worth it."

Her words were the final blow. The flames in my eyes exploded and a wash of silent tears poured down my cheeks. I lay there, gasping for air in ragged sobs that echoed in the empty room and the dark of night. It hurt too much to lie still. I lurched upward, sobbing, ragged screams tearing out of my throat.

Zhira caught me as I fell forward, holding me in her strong, caring arms. Her hand wrapped around my neck and guided my head onto her shoulder. Tears dripped off of my cheeks and stained her shirt. For the first time since the Normandy had been ripped apart, I cried for Serena.

I cried for the woman I loved. The woman who had captured my heart. The woman who had fought against enemies without and within, and who had still found the power in her heart to love me. I mourned for the woman who had been my peace and comprehension. I grieved for the woman who had been my calm in the chaos.

My heart began to bleed, pushing out the black, horrific infection that had festered for months on end. I closed my eyes and I saw Serena's face. I looked into her haunted, lovely silver eyes that had seen death and destruction and chaos, eyes that had looked on losses immeasurable…and could still gleam with love.

"I…miss…her." I gasped against Zhira's shoulder. "I want...I want her back!"

"I know, Liara." Zhira murmured, moving her hand in a soothing motion across my crest. "I know."

She began singing the lullaby again in a rough, tuneless voice. Her arms shielded me as I grieved in the open and wept as I should have...so long ago.