Liara
I looked at Shepard and my eyes turned hard and cold. Her words had been so dead, so unfeeling, and when I balanced that against the look in her eyes, I became incensed. This was the woman who had grieved when another had been forced to take harsh action. This was the woman who had claimed that she existed so that others could dream.
Her eyes answered my gaze and in them I saw every dream I had once possessed until she had sacrificed herself and shattered them. I saw the life I had imagined for us, soaring through the stars, protecting the galaxy, protecting each other, loving each other. I had placed my fragile, naïve heart in her hands and she had worshipped the love between us with an undying passion...until she had died, and the passion with her.
"Well all right then?" I asked, ignoring the dead body on the floor, for that was how callous I had become. "What manner of response is that, Shepard? Are you going to say that you are in shock? That you did not expect me to take such an action? I would find that strange, seeing as it was you who taught me how traitors must be dealt with. Have you come to a realization with those four words? Have you had some glorious epiphany that requires you to speak in such a flippant manner? Why will you say nothing?" I asked, knowing the question was ridiculous, but still needing to see something in her that resembled the woman who had…who had cared what became of my life.
Shepard met my eyes, and I saw that now her gaze held a storm. A rage of conflict, a torrent of emotion that I knew she could express with eloquence and passion. But I wanted to hear the heat in her voice. I wanted the fire that burned in her heart to spill forth from her and condemn and decry. I wanted to fight.
"Why do you want me to be angry?" Shepard asked, fueling the conflagration spitting sparks inside my soul.
"Because you should be!" I cried. "If you are who you say you are, if you are the woman I knew, then you would be filled with the fiercest of wrath! She," I pointed to Nyxeris' corpse, "might have been innocent!"
"Do you believe she was innocent?" Shepard asked, infuriating me further.
"Goddess!" I all but shrieked. "The evidence of my belief is in front of your eyes!"
"Yes it is." Shepard nodded. "Why are you angry at me for trusting your decisions as it comes to your life? Have I ever tried to alter the way in which you live?"
Her question struck me like a literal blow and I reeled, taking a step backwards. "No." I breathed.
"Then, if I am who I say I am, why would I change that?" she sounded so logical, so calm, and it infuriated me.
Because I have done things that are reprehensible! Because I became what you could have become but never let happen! You lost the love of your life once, Serena! And she came back to you, and she gave you back your life and your health! But the galaxy did not smile on me! I was not the favored child of the forces that turn the worlds!
"You do not know me to trust me any longer, Shepard." I hissed, revealing the truth it appeared she did not wish to see. "What makes you think that after two years you can come back into my life and act as though nothing has changed!? That you can see the evidence before your very eyes and say nothing, but accept it in the same manner you would accept hearing that it might rain!"
"God, Liara, I am not an idiot." Shepard said, and I felt a slight heat in her tone that warmed me and encouraged the conflagration burning in my soul. "You think I don't know that I fucking hurt you? You think I'm completely ignorant of the fact that I died? I am horribly aware of the fact that I didn't fucking exist for two goddamn years. So you know what? I believe that I don't have the right to judge any of the decisions you've made for the past two years. I don't have the right to be angry at you, so I don't understand why you're trying so hard to piss me off."
"Who are you?" I interrogated her. "Where is the woman who crammed my own emotions in my face after my mother died? The woman who helped me weep and bleed my soul clean of grief? The woman who taught me that life could be beautiful even when it was devastating!? Where is the woman whose righteous indignation burned so fierce that it could blind the goddess-damned galaxy!?"
"She died!" Shepard's voice finally rose in volume. "She died and she lost everything that mattered to her. She lost everything she loved! And then she woke up on a table, naked and in pain, and the first thing she had to do was lift a weapon and kill! You're not the only one who has changed, Liara! I have too! But the one way in which I haven't changed is that when I regained consciousness on that goddamn space station I heard a voice in my ear and I whispered your name because I was hoping to god and hell and everything that it was you! But it wasn't. And I've crossed the galaxy and back, suffering, but unwilling to be angry because it is a suffering I brought on myself."
"Suffering." I spat the word and it left a bitter taste in my mouth. "Yes. I know what it is to suffer. Before you entered my life, I knew the word as an idea, a possibility, but now I know it as a lifestyle!"
"What do you want from me, Liara?" Shepard asked, her eyes pleading, her lips trembling. "Because, if I could, I would rip out my own goddamn heart for you."
"You'd die for me?" I asked, feeling anger burn brighter. "Am I supposed to be impressed? Am I meant to forget what has happened because you say you would die for me? If your dying meant anything in this galaxy, then I might be moved. But death is cheap, Shepard. Death is easy. And death is a decision you seem to be at perfect peace with making!"
"How many decisions have you seen me make that you thought I was a perfect peace with?" Shepard almost growled. "Jeong." she raised a single finger. "Ledee." another finger. "Kaidan-fucking-Alenko." she hissed. "You hated me for that. Is everything surrounding us so disintegrated that…that you won't even ask me questions any longer? That you won't try to understand?"
"I am beyond that puerile statement now." I stated. "I am beyond the asari that you knew and did not love enough to live for."
Shepard's face paled and once again I noticed how young and innocent she seemed without her scar. How untried and untested. How pure.
"I…" her words cracked and her eyes grew wet with what might be tears, "…I…I want to talk to you, Liara." she whispered. "Not in anger, not in…not in a mess like this. Please. Please, can we talk?"
My heart hardened, but my mind intervened. How many times did she sacrifice her time to speak to you? How many times did she show such patience and help you understand her motivations and her emotions and her reasons? So many…so many times. Enough that I…I will accept her invitation to speak.
"I have work to do." I told her, pulling up my omni-tool. "I need to acquaint myself with the data you procured concerning the Shadow Broker."
Shepard's shoulders slumped and the light fled from her eyes, leaving them dark and dispirited. "I understand." she spoke, barely above a whisper.
"Which means I will not be able to speak with you until tonight." I keyed in my program, found Shepard's omni-tool signature and sent her the data. "This is the address of my apartment. Meet me there at twenty-two hundred hours. And we will talk, though I cannot promise it will lead to anything."
Shepard nodded and kept her expression carefully neutral. "Thank you, Liara."
She left my office and I stared at the dead body on the floor, before sending an encrypted message to my cleaner, and to Zhira, letting her know what had happened, and that I would be at home for the remainder of the day. After that, I took the OSD Shepard had given me and left my office, wondering what the night would bring.
It was our talks that led us to the discovery of each other, that birthed our love. She bared her heart in those moments among the stars, alone in her cabin. I fell in love with her in the dark of space and the quiet times of rare respite. I fell in love with her voice and her beauty and…and oh goddess…if I speak to her tonight, if I see her heart once more…might I fall in love with her again?