Liara

Serena became gravity. I drifted towards her inexorable pull, devastated by the taste and texture of her lips against my own. I knew it was an attack, something planned, something purposeful, but part of me could not help but desire it. To let our jagged edges crash into the other's, to smooth them, to help us understand the anger and the bitterness that we flung like arrows from pierced heart to pierced heart.

Her arms wrapped tighter around me and I thought that I would feel her solidity, her strength engulfing me in the manner it once did. However, I could feel slight, subtle tremors wracking her body. I could not tell if they were caused by chill, or pain, or grief, but I believed that they were the same as the tremors wracking me. Absolute, undiluted fear.

I did not know what to do. I did not understand. Here I stood with the woman who had been my everything and we had spent this time tearing each other to shreds. We had flung our words and our pain against the other, bruising, tearing, lacerating, leaving wounds that might never heal. Here we were, lips pressed to each other's in some sort of hopeful tourniquet…would it be able to stop the bleeding? Would either of us be able to heal?

Our lips broke and we paused, still in each other's arms. Shepard's head rested on my shoulder, her hair tickling along my neck and my crest. All that had shattered in me split further, then coalesced, splintered edge against splintered edge, forming into a realization, an epiphany, and a want. The words that pounded through my veins and in my thoughts whispered from my lips into the air.

"It feels the same." the simple statement left me in a rush of breath and I did not know its meaning until Serena pulled back, her silver eyes staring into mine as they had the first time she saw me.

Searching. Seeking. Questioning. Fierce. Strong. Different. Passionate.

Everything had felt different. Looking at her now, speaking to her now had been worlds away from where we stood before she died, but this was not. Touch, connection, the heat and electricity arcing between our bodies. This felt the same as it always had, yanking me back into the past or, perhaps, bringing that past into the present in the form of a promise and a plea.

"I…" Shepard's lips quirked upwards. "I do not understand." she murmured, and I wanted to laugh and weep at the same time.

"Everything is changed between us but this." I whispered, lifting my hand, tracing her cheekbone, her eyebrow, the shell of her unmutilated ear. "When you kissed me it seemed…it seemed as though you had never died, as though a more primal part of myself recognized you and saw…saw through the anger and through the bitterness and simply wanted."

"What are you saying, Liara?" Shepard asked, her eyes growing heavy with the shadowed haze I had always known was desire.

"We are…we are saying things all wrong, Serena." I whispered. "We are speaking from our minds and our heightened emotion, not from the truth of our hearts because when you kissed me…when you kissed me, none of it seemed to matter. The questions ceased, the darkness faded, and I…I simply wanted that moment to go on into eternity. Time ceased and all...all seemed well again."

She nodded, but did not seem convinced. I rested my hands on her hips, drawing her tight to me, melding our bodies together, listening to her hissed intake of breath, translating it with ease because I could feel its purpose resonating in my soul.

"Can we start from what we know…what both of us feel?" I whispered the question.

"You feel it too?" Serena asked, her tone falling low, a slight quaver in her voice that communicated more than she could say with words alone. "Because I won't…I won't do a damn thing you don't want me to, even though I want…I've wanted nothing more than…than this. Than you."

She is still kind, unwilling to venture where she believes I might not truly wish to go. She still cares for me, no matter the words we have flung at each other. No matter the bitterness and time that divides us. This is still true. Serena is still this sort of woman…and I…goddess…I want to know her touch. I want to know what it is to feel her skin against my own, our hearts beating in tandem. This is a language more eloquent than the words we use to sharpen our jagged edges into blades that strike with purpose. This is a place in which we might both understand one another. It is all I can think to do, for I do not wish to be broken in this way for the rest of my life.

"Once," I whispered, feeling an ache in my heart that had nothing to do with the pain of losing her, and it felt liberating beyond belief, "I attained a knowledge of your heart and of your mind before I trusted you with my body. Perhaps…perhaps now…"

"Perhaps now we have to go backwards." Serena offered a lopsided grin. "I miss you, Liara." she breathed. "I miss you every day. And I'm sorry that I spoke to you in anger, and that the words I said were intended to hurt you but…but that doesn't take away from the truth of some of them, and I'm not going to recant it just because you're offering…"

"I feel the same." I nodded. "But I am willing to put aside the hurt. I am willing to cast a wish into the darkness and pray for it to be returned. Because I am tired of hurting…but, moreso, I am tired of the anger gnawing at my heart. I am tired of the memories that return and the bitterness that taints my living and my dreams and my friendships. I want…want something different, something new, and I am willing to risk everything to be able to grasp…grasp what I once lost."

Serena's hands reached out as they once did, pulling me to her, wrapping her body around my own like a shield, a barrier where the outside world and its worries and its battles did not exist. Where we simply stood, as we were, together. It had been that way before, had felt that way before, and I could not lie..it felt the same now.

"You never lost me, Liara." Serena whispered. "The body can die but the heart…we both know that the heart and the love that it carries are far more lasting than any shell of flesh, any promise of blood and bone."

"I…" in spite of the words that were spoken, the tension rising between us, the ache in my body and my heart, I could not resist a coy smile, "…I need a reminder, Serena." I leaned in, whispering against her ear, letting my breath rush over her skin in the way I knew lit a fire in her blood. "A reminder of that love. Show me."