Liara

I moved towards the bed in the room, uncertain of everything, but confident in knowing that Serena would follow me. I felt nothing but an immense calm as I stood before the bed, reaching behind me and tugging on the zipper of my dress. I listened to the slight metallic sound as it pulled down, like a key turning in a lock, providing entry to a world full of so much potential…and so much pain.

A wall of fire appeared at my back, a warrior's hand rested on my shoulder, and I felt the whisper of her breath along my crest, taunting and tempting.

"May I?" Serena breathed, her heated hand covering my own.

"Yes." I answered, willing to allow this, willing to try to regain our footing on the ground that had been tainted by time and death and hurt and pain.

I remained still as I felt her deft, capable fingers take hold of the zipper, pulling it down, opening the door. I felt her hands brush my shoulders as she took the edges of the dress and peeled them away, down my arms and off of them until the cloth puddled at my feet.

Serena inhaled, sharp, as though she had been pierced by a bullet or a blade. Even though my back was to her, I recognized the sound. A pained, primal utterance that rarely left her lips. I turned to look at her, struck by the ravenous hunger lighting her eyes. In her, I could see the reason the asari thought humans a lesser species. They were ruled by instinctual impulse, often without logic, too quick to harm instead of reason, to attack instead of measure, to corrupt instead of understand.

However, I knew that Serena would chain her hands. She would bind the part of herself that wished to possess, for that was the manner in which she loved. If she wished, she could take, devour, demand, and release me back into the world, changed and broken by the hell that could be loving her. But she would not. She had been, and remained, a maverick of her species. She attempted to curb the destructive nature I had seen in the human race, even though she had devoted her life to war.

"Why do you wait?" I asked, tempting her, testing her, reaching behind my back and unclasping my bra, letting it fall to the ground.

Another guttural noise of pain peeled from her throat and I saw her hands trembling. She remained still, her body wire tight, her face showing strain. I could see the stitches in her face elongating in increments as her lips twitched and trembled. I knew that I had power here, and I wanted to see how far I could push her. To see if she would break…for if she broke here, in this physical space, where naught but touch existed…then we had no common ground. If she had changed here, in this place, then we truly were sundered beyond repair.

"Why do you wait, Serena?" I pushed her a little further, dragging her to the edge. "I am here, waiting for you. What gives you pause? What holds back your hands?"

Serena's lips quivered. "I've never seen anything so beautiful in my life. Time is precious, and it's sacred, and I want this memory. No matter what happens, I want this memory."

"What if it hurts you later?" I taunted her. "What if it fills you with regret and despair?"

"It won't." Serena shook her head, her eyes riveted to mine, her entire body trembling with the effort it took to hold herself away from me. "It won't. If this wounds me I will cherish that scar."

"What if it refuses to heal?" I asked, stepping close enough to where she could inhale my scent, let it batter against her instinct. "What if it bleeds eternally, Serena? I still bleed from the wound of losing you. And my blood is poisoned. You are right. My grief did not make me kind."

"I know." her voice was hoarse, rasping, desperately edged. "I know what you're doing, and I'm okay with it."

"I do not grasp your meaning, Serena." I hugged my naked body against an imaginary chill, then let my hands slide down my chest, lingering over my breasts, fingers toying with my nipples until they hardened beneath my touch. The muscle in Serena's jaw leapt in rapid, staccato motion.

"You can't break me, Liara." Serena whispered. "Not like this. I love you so much that even the pain you put me through is pure pleasure. Because it's you."

Because it's you…her words resonated with me, reminding me of Saren's compound on Virmire. She had refused to let me go near the Prothean beacon there. She had been lifted by it; her mind had been sundered. I remembered the sound of her agonized screaming…pain she had spared me.

Because it's you.

"Take off your clothes, Serena." I ordered her, touched to my core by her words, feeling them resonate in my very soul. "I would see you as you are."

The woman, the soldier, my resurrected once lover obeyed. Her hands flew to the hem of her shirt and she peeled it off once more. She knelt down, untying the laces of her boots, pulling them off and setting them beside the bed in neat, military fashion. Her socks joined the boots and she rose to her full height. She loosened her belt and it sounded like the cracking of a whip. Her pants and underwear dropped to the ground, leaving her naked before me.

I remembered every curve of muscle, every imperfection in her skin. Now, however, save for the stitches across her face and the bandage on her back, none of them existed. Her arms no longer had the light dusting of freckles. There were no more scars. Her body had been made perfect. It looked different but it felt the same as it had the first night she disrobed before me. The night she had begged me to stay, pleaded with me to keep touching her.

I moved closer to Shepard, basking in the heat radiating from her naked body. I reached out and placed my hand on her shoulders, running my fingers across her skin. She stiffened and once again I heard that sharp inhale, the struggle to keep her hands and body still. She shivered, micro-tremors slipping and arcing across every muscle.

I laced my arms around her body and pulled it close, resting my head against her chest, listening to the rapid pounding of her heart.

"I remember this." I whispered, angling my head, pressing my lips to the satin skin at the top of her breast.

A raw, ragged whimper punctuated the air and her hips pulsed against mine in the dance of mad, utter, and complete need. She kept her hands at her sides, clenched, her fingernails cutting into her palms. I dared another kiss, rewarded by the same hoarse sound that bordered the thin lines of anguish and ecstasy both.

I pulled my head away from the war-drum cadence of her beating heart. Her eyes were glittering, glowing, and in so much pain I did not know how she remained functional. The muscles in her neck were tight, corded, and I ran a fingertip across them, watching her throat pulse beneath her skin as she swallowed, hard.

"I know you want to touch me, Serena." I whispered, biting the juncture between her neck and shoulder, a particularly sensitive place on her body.

As I had anticipated, I felt a burst of breath wash across my crest and her knees buckled the slightest bit. She stood upright under sheer force of will. I felt a hunger gnawing in the pit of my stomach. To rule over this woman who had haunted me for two years. At last I had her before me, naked and vulnerable, chaining her own desire and giving me everything that she had…by withholding all that she was.

You are a beautiful conundrum, a puzzle now deeper than the disappearance of the Protheans. I want to return to my roots, Serena. I want to dig in the earth once again, to find ancient secrets, to restore history.

"Lie down." I commanded and she obeyed, keeping her eyes on me all the while.

She lay before me, open and unclothed, ready to be unmade by the connecting of our bodies and souls. She extended a hand to me, a silent invitation to be once more part and parcel with her. I shook my head and smiled. Biotic energy swirled from my hands, latching about her wrists and ankles, binding them so that she could not move.

Her silver eyes burned and her nostrils flared as she attempted to struggle free from the restraints. But she would not get free. Here, for this moment, she was my prisoner. She was my excavation site, and in her I would attempt to find what had been lost, to see if it might be salvaged, or if it would be put away, devoid of worth, damaged, missing parts and pieces.

I crawled onto the bed and slow, careful, rested my body above her own. I lowered myself, letting my breasts press into hers, fitting my hips between her spread legs, a passionate embrace that she could not escape and could not deepen. Her lips were parted, slight, panting moans issuing from between them. Like birdsong, I could have awakened and been lulled into slumber by those sounds.

"Touch me, Serena." I tormented her, knowing that she wished to, knowing that I kept her from doing so. "Please." I made my voice ache with longing. "Please touch me."

Her jaw tightened once more and I saw a shiver course through her as she attempted to fight the restraints. I let her body writhe beneath mine, let her ache with need. Using the biotic restraints, I forced her legs down as her hips lunged upward, seeking friction, her beautiful body begging already for intimate touch. For release.

My pain has not been released in years. Not truly. My want and my need have not been sated. Allow me to show you, Serena.

"Why…" Serena's breath came in ragged gasps as I trailed a single fingernail, ever so lightly, down her side, "…are…you…doing this?"

"Because I am searching for the truth." I replied. "And I believe I might find it here…but only if you do not cloud my judgment. For now, you are mine."

Shepard smiled with the uninjured side of her mouth. "Go for it." her taut body relaxed the slightest amount. "I trust you."

I am glad. I thought as I began to kiss her, slow, deep, languorous and purposeful. Because I do not trust myself. Forgive me, Serena…but, in this moment and the next…my touch might not be kind.