Liara

Something changed in the elevator. I could not place it, but when the door shut behind us, silence bore down; the air grew thick with tension. My throat tightened and I swore that I could smell smoke. My muscles spasmed, remembering the tension, shaking and fear as explosions rocked the ship. I could feel the heat of the fires licking across and at my skin.

It's time…I turned my eyes to Shepard, wondering if her mind was locked in the same memories as mine. If she, too, felt the weight of that day above Alchera pressing down on her. If she could feel the heaviness in the air, threatening to drown us both beneath it.

The elevator door opened and we stepped out into Shepard's quarters. The sound of the door closing behind me send shivers down my spine as I remembered being left behind as Serena ran into the belly of hell. I examined the room that I stood in, seeing, once again, that Cerberus had attempted to provide Shepard every amenity available, and that, true to her nature, Shepard kept very clean, organized, minimal quarters.

No decorations were hung on the walls. The shelves held a few antique, actual paper books, and model ships in various states of assembly. She had a small office, a simple terminal, and…my heart kicked in my chest. Serena, the woman of no decoration, of secret sentiment and emotion experienced only in private…had changed. On her desk stood a picture of me. I did not know when it had been taken, or how she had recovered it but…there it was...the one bit of sentimentality, the one alteration to her character...related to me.

Aboard the first Normandy, she displayed no pictures of her family. No pictures of Avi. Nothing present that any other who came into her quarters could see. But here…she has this picture…this reminder of my face, my presence in her life.

"Can I get you anything to drink?" Shepard asked, and I noted that her voice seemed to have dropped into a lower register…weighted down with all the things unspoken between us.

"No." I shook my head. "I would rather…rather have done with this."

Shepard's expression darkened. "This…this isn't something you want, is it?" she asked, willing to accept whatever pain she might be forced to endure from my answer.

I inhaled, deep, and gathered my composure. "I do." I admitted. "I just…I do not know where to begin, how to begin, and…and I know that what we say here will lead to some form of ending."

Shepard nodded, sipped from her glass of whiskey, and gestured to the sitting area in her quarters. I stepped down from her office area and sat down on one of the sofas, attempting to relax, even though my heart pounded in my chest. Serena sat opposite me and stared down into her glass of whiskey as if it could answer her questions and ease her pain.

"Every beginning has an end." Shepard mused. "Funny thing is, we're here to talk about an end. A damn, shitty end."

"Yes." I agreed, saying no more, because I did not know what more to say.

Shepard raised her eyes to me, eloquent, seeking silver. She tucked her hair behind her ear and I winced once again as I saw the damage done, the missing part of her body.

"Say something, please." Shepard breathed. "Ask me anything because…because I died and I…I left you alone in the world."

The abject grief in her voice pierced through me. I saw the heaviness of the pain and sorrow that she carried, a burden in her eyes, in the set of her shoulders, in the rapid blinks of her eyelids, as though she fought back tears.

"What happened?" the question found its way free. "You left me, Serena. You left me standing in your cabin after the ship was struck. You purposefully closed the doors of the elevator so that I could not follow. You whispered to me 'It's time'. Those two words have haunted me…because I did not know their meaning, and I would have you tell me."

"There's an old saying on earth." Shepard spoke, low, tragic, a haunted whisper. "It says that old warriors and their scars know the coming storms. I felt something…something dark in that day. I was singing the old songs, thinking thoughts that hadn't tormented me in…years. And when I felt that first blast, when the ship shuddered beneath our feet, I knew that something terrible was going to happen."

My throat tightened further, and I felt the coil of heat that had driven me forward, that had spilled a matriarch's blood, kindle once more inside my chest. At last, after two years of wondering, two years of those words haunting my night terrors, I knew the reason. She had whispered them like a sacred chant, like a holy verse, and they had sent chills down my spine. Now, I knew the reason.

"Then why did you leave me?" I asked. "If you knew…why did you leave?"

Shepard looked as though I had punched her in the gut. "All my life, I have been the epicenter of tragedy." she glanced up, her silver eyes burning. "People die around me, Liara. You've watched it happen. Inside my mind and during the war. I live. Others die. It's some stupid, twisted bullshit, but that doesn't mean it doesn't happen. I didn't," a single, silent tear fell from each silver eye, "I didn't want that to be you. I didn't want to watch you die. I didn't want you to get hurt. I just…I wanted to be able to protect someone properly for fucking once in my life."

I could not help but feel an immense pity, and a blistering anger at the same time. "How shortsighted you are, Serena." I whispered. "You did not want me to be hurt, but I suffered. You did not wish to see me in pain, and I nearly died from the agony of losing you. You could have saved yourself, Shepard. You could have come with me and we would not be standing here, in this place, trading these difficult words."

I waited to see how she would react, for I could taste the bitterness and heat in my words as they sparked off of my lips. As she always had, Serena showed an intense grace under fire. She did not sink into herself; her shoulders did not tense, her brow did not crease. Instead, she looked me in the eye with the most hollow, vacant expression in her eyes. I remembered falling into that gaze, allowing her to give me the precious, beautiful gift of her pain and experience. I remembered protecting it, protecting her, and wanting to do nothing other than that.

But here, now, she had proven all that had once filled me with wrath and fury against her. She had confirmed what I believed. She had felt that something would happen, and she had left me. Of her own free will. Of her own choosing. Because doing that was who she was. The woman who lived. But, because of her choice, she had not lived…she had died…and she had killed me.

"I know now what I need to know." I rose from my chair. "I do not think…I do not think we need to speak any longer."

I turned to walk up the stairs when a voice ripped into my back, grabbed hold of my spine, and held me in place.

"Don't you dare fucking leave, Liara T'Soni." Serena spoke, a primal growl, a soldier's order, and a motherless child's wailing all at once.

I turned around, shocked to see her standing close to me, her hands extended towards me, palm up, as though she waited for me to place something there.

"This isn't done." she spoke, and I felt as though my feet were locked to the ground. "Not until you tell me everything that happened to you, because I've earned that. I hacked your terminals and I killed your Shadow Broker and I paid in flesh and blood for your victory. You came aboard the first Normandy and stayed to prove your innocence. Speak to me now, on the second, and prove my guilt."

"You're asking me to hurt you further, Serena, and I do not want to. I do not want to relive that. I think we've both hurt enough for a lifetime." I attempted to convince her that it was done, that we were done, even though, somewhere in the depths of my heart, I screamed at myself to stop.

"I haven't." Serena hissed. "Because I fucking died. So I've got a new lifetime now, ready to hit me with a fuckmothering shit-ton of pain. I want…"

"You want what?" I questioned her, feeling my anger rise to meet her own. "Because you were never truly clear about that, Serena, even in your first life. What did you want from me?"

We stood toe to toe, in the presence of each other's hovering spirits, tasting each other's breath. I looked up at her, and her eyes fell to mine, filled with a warrior's one dream and a soldier's lifetime of sorrows. I wanted to taste her answer as it brushed across my skin like a razor blade. I wanted her truth so that I could take it into my soul and let it harm or heal. I wanted to be away, but I needed to stand here.

"I wanted nothing from you." Serena whispered, her eyes filling with her passion, her love, her fury and fire. "I wanted everything with you. I wanted marriage. Old age." more tears slipped down her cheeks. "Lots of little blue children."