Thessia

Sen watched Liara carefully, studying her friend in the same manner as she studied the patients under her care. Every minute facial expression, every subtle shifting of her body, every gesture. Sen knew how to look for pain, to look for reticence, for stubbornness, for anything that might indicate that her patient was not being forthcoming about their condition.

All Liara exhibited was pain…and Sen did not understand why. She knew how the story ended. Every asari born after the Reaper War knew of the great love of the Savior of the Galaxy. An asari archaeologist, Liara T'Soni, the beating heart of the soldier who had given her all. Now, Sen was seeing more than the histories relayed, more than the matron's and matriarch's anecdotes could tell when they spoke of the days of war.

"You're hurting so terribly." Sen spoke before she realized her lips had parted to do so, and the weight of Liara's eyes somehow seemed terrifying. "I…I'm sorry... it is just…would you not like to rest? To break from this recounting of your life and…this must be so terrible for you."

"You come from a place of knowledge," Liara offered a soft smile, a smile that had given hope to the galaxy in ways that it would never know, "but you lack understanding. You can see my sorrow, see my hurt, but you cannot divine from whence it came."

"But you can still read my mind." Sen muttered, feeling inadequate next to the asari she considered a friend and mentor.

"I have made it my profession to get to the source of another's thoughts of my own intuition." Liara rested a comforting hand on Sen's shoulder. "It is not a skill you lack so much as it is one that you have not honed."

"Did you have that skill at the time you speak of?" Sen asked, needing to know how and why Liara had become the person that the pilot of the Normandy, the man named Joker, had used physical violence against. "Because it seems as though you remained angry and in pain for…for far too long."

"Oh, I did." Liara's voice carried the sorrow of centuries, the pain of memories, the brokenness of blacker days. "I was an emotional masochist filled with all the fury of pseudo-righteous indignation. Seeing Serena brought back the black hole in my psyche that I thought I had forgotten or filled in or…or some idiotic thought. I thought I had healed. Instead, I had simply ignored."

"And this is why you hurt?" Sen questioned, eager to know, eager to understand.

"Yes." Liara's voice seemed to be made of burden itself. "Pain, like love, has many facets. The pain of sorrow eases. The pain of loss grows lighter. The pain of misunderstanding can vanish. But…but the pain of pride and the cost of pride…can be eternal. That is what it was, clawing into my soul, destroying me slowly. Destroying Serena too, even though I could not even see her pain…and when I did, when I glimpsed the agony that consumed her, in my selfishness and stubbornness I believed that she deserved it. In my pride I would willingly have destroyed her."

Sen nodded, mute, a shiver running down her spine as she remembered that Mira's father would arrive on Thessia soon. The man had never approved of his daughter taking up with an asari, and had been emphatic about that in the most passive aggressive way possible when he had visited his daughter and stayed with Mira and Sen. It had cut the cardiologist to the core, but she realized now that she might well have to endure what Liara had done to Shepard, though not in as intimate a situation.

Even though they were no longer together, Sen could easily see Edward Dorsen reviling her for his daughter's condition. A weight pressed against her chest as the man's image entered the forefront of her mind, the crease between his brows when he felt anger or disapproval. She could hear his deep, baritone voice steeped and sorrow and in hatred as he saw asari physicians attending to his daughter. How he would accuse Sen of not being there to help mitigate the damage done to Mira's body.

"What happened, Liara?" Sen asked. "What happened to change your mind? To make it where you believed you could love Shepard again? You are describing yourself as so unkind, as so bitter and…and, frankly, Liara, I am disgusted with the asari you describe yourself as being."

"As you should be." Liara said, stunning Sen. "I am disgusted with the asari that I was. Because I did walk back through time, Sen. I walked back through everything that had happened, through all that I had endured, through all that had been said. I relieved every kiss, every night of passion. I relived the day above Alchera inside my mind, and all that happened afterwards. And in every moment, I found justifications for how I had acted and for what and who I had become. I twisted words, skewed events, and found peace and calm and reason for all else. I was a fool."

Sen's heart cracked. "Then nothing changed?" she wondered. "You continued to…to treat Shepard as you had, to rebuff the crew, to ignore those who were your friends? You remained so…so cold and bitter?"

A glint of hope struck sparks and starlight in Liara's eyes. "No." she whispered, and Sen felt as though she somehow stood in a moment, in a place, that was holy. "No, I did not."

Confusion creased Sen's brow as she puzzled over Liara's words, and the change in Liara's eyes, the hope that seemed to infuse one of the heroes of the galaxy.

"What changed?" Sen leaned forward, hanging on to every moment, every word, every secret. "If you still found justification for what had happened, for the way you had acted, for what you had become…how did you change yourself?"

"Because the subconscious mind, when uninhibited, will speak to us greater truths and show us things, in the starkest of manners and most beautiful of metaphors, that we have hidden from." Liara replied. "In my conscious moments, I could distract myself, convince myself of things, rewrite the histories of my life and paint the canvasses in appealing colors that corresponded to my darker emotions. Satisfied with my endeavor, I closed my eyes. And, in the darkness, I dreamt."