Liara

I had seen enough of war to know it for what it was. War had a soul all its own, a desperate yearning for destruction that gave it birth and life. War sundered the things that people and nature built. War flouted every known moral, every adhered-to ethic. War took all things cherished, all things beautiful, and piece by piece tore them apart until nothing remained but the detritus of once great dreams.

As I entered my apartment, I realized that I was at war. At war with two sides of myself, perhaps even more. I warred against my memories and my desires, I warred against the asari I had been two years ago. Sweet, naïve, ignorant of the harsher truths of the world. Hands free of blood, mind free of violence. I warred against the heart that I realized, now, still loved Serena Shepard. The part of me that had listened to Zhira and realized that I had been unfair…even cruel in my hatred of her for so long.

And her words…her words, eloquent, impassioned…and refusing to hate me. Refusing to become angry even as I heaped the selfsame emotion upon her. I sat down and began sifting through the data she had brought me. I lost my self in data and facts, piecing together what Shepard had acquired with what my agents had been able to bring me thus far, and finding the beginnings of a trail.

I sent a quick message to a contact, planning to meet with them later tonight and begin to follow the trail hidden in the seemingly insignificant pieces of data. I closed my omni tool screen and looked out at the city of Nos Astra. Every part of my mind hurt. For a brief moment, I wished that I could be transported back into my insanity, where my own mind created phantoms, specters from a life once lived, to speak to me and help me sort through the madness of my thoughts.

Just the sight of her turned my world on its end. Everything that I believed resurged and receded in an unpredictable tide that would drown me eventually. I had promised her that we would speak tonight. I had promised her that I would sit across from her, look into her eyes, and say the words that burned in my soul with the power to scorch me. I would grant her my knowledge, my beliefs, my faith and lack thereof…and she would…

She will be Shepard. I realized. She will be who I remember, because, several hours ago…that is who she was. She acted as the woman that my own mind has warped, twisted, and changed…oh Goddess. I do not know what to do, who to be, what to think in these moments.

I stared at the door, even though I would not open it for many hours yet. For a moment, I let my mind dwell on the metaphor of what would happen, come the sunset. Of how I would welcome Shepard into my home…and how we would speak, perhaps in the same manner as we once did. I began to walk through the rooms of my apartment, surveying the things that I had collected, the memories of a life I did not live anymore.

I looked at the painting I had commissioned of Ilos, and remembered battling the geth, finding Vigil, and having a hidden history revealed to us. A history of blood and destruction and a war that had toppled the most powerful species of the galaxy. We had learned of the enemy set against us, and then we had defeated it…and it had almost cost the life of the woman I loved. It had almost taken from me…in the same manner that the attack over Alchera did take from me.

Would I have been as angry if Shepard had perished on the Citadel? I questioned myself. Or, in the smoke and fire, would I have understood the reason that she gave her life. It would have been simpler, I believe, to rationalize the giving of her life to that cause. Why then, can I not seem to shake the bitterness that haunts me?

Is it because she told me that it was time, as if she had foreseen her fate and ran towards it, leaving me behind? Is it because I begged her to come back to me, and she would not give her promise? Why? Why can I see myself forgiving her if she had died during Sovereign's attack on the Citadel, and not when the Normandy was decimated?

I stopped in front of one of my displays, noticing the soft, warm light beaming down on the Prothean artifact. I pressed my fingertips to the cool glass of the enclosure, remembering who I once was. The young, gleeful asari who had lifted that artifact from the dirt, lovingly cleaned the dust off of it and lifted it to the light after fifty-thousand years. How my heart had surged with pleasure and with the true joy of following a dream.

That first moment, that first victory, had driven me to more dangerous digs, more faraway places, finding remnants of those who had once ruled the known galaxy. That thrill of discovery, that sense of worth in puzzling through the past…it had been that mind that, when that world had crumbled, kept me alive. It had been that mind who had set itself to uncovering the secrets of humanity, what drove their contradictory minds and what spawned their oft times ridiculous actions.

They are a race that is so easy to love, once you find the truth of them, I thought, remembering Joker's sardonic voice over the PA system, Kaidan's bright eyes, Ashley's impassioned voice when she quoted poetry, Dr. Chakwas' kind wisdom, Renee's teasing sense of humor, and…Serena. Everything that she was. Every aspect of herself. Even in her rage, even in her brutality, she retained something worth loving.

And am I brutal with purpose? I wondered. Is there something within me that remains worthy when my hands hold a weapon and my eyes are filled with rage? What will I do when I see her again? Will I be able to control my anger and my rage…will I be able to understand the darkness filling my soul and blackening my eyes?

Will I be able to fight down the things I am barely even able to comprehend and see clear to the part of my heart that loves her still?

I shook my head at the thoughts, knowing that it probably would not be possible. Every time I had seen her, something black, thick, twisted and tangled had snarled around my heart and my thoughts and muddled my mind.

This…whatever is between us…cannot be spoken in words. I will…I will have to…I will have to meld with her. To show her what has happened in my life, and to discover the truth of who she is and…and if she is the Serena that I remember then…then all will work out in the end. We might not part as lovers but…but hopefully we can part as friends.

My heart felt hollow as I thought over the last words. I did not want Serena Shepard to be my enemy…I did not know if I could love her, or if she could love me but…but I did not know if I could simply be her friend.

"Goddess," I whispered, "if ever there were a moment for divine intervention, for something beyond my power to control to steer this in the direction it is meant to go, it would be now."

As if in answer, my home alarm shrieked, the window shattered, and I heard the sound of a bullet deflected by the kinetic barriers .