Shepard watched as the Normandy settled into dock. Her first impression of Illium was that it looked nice.
Then again, so did Bekenstien, and look how that turned out.
She stood in the airlock, dressed in her updated N7 armor, various small arms concealed within its frame. In the bridge, Joker let out a small sigh. It was always like this. Shepard was always mission ready. Most of the time that was a good thing, but it wasn't exactly healthy, taking everything on herself like she did.
"Someone really needs to learn to delegate." He whispered. Shepard heard him. The audio implants, courtesy of Cerberus, allowed her to. She brushed off the comment.
I am not overworked.
Her mission record so far said otherwise. First she'd ordered the Normandy to Omega, rescued Garrus, and cured a plague affecting the lower levels of the station. Then they shut down two Blue suns operations, one on a prison ship called Purgatory, the other on the recycling world of Korlus. After that, She'd taken them to Horizon, and defended it against the Collector assault. But, despite their best efforts, half the colony was taken. Shepard was still kicking herself over that. Horizon brought back painful memories for her, so she threw herself at new missions with almost reckless abandon. On Haestrom, she cut a path straight through the geth, in many cases, her biotics leaving nothing but scrap, and managed to rescue Tali. She'd helped Kasumi on Bekenstien, and Zaeed on Zorya. Not to mention all the distress calls they'd responded to. At this point, Shepard was running on four hours of sleep a night. She insisted on leading every ground mission, but rotated crew constantly. Now they were on Illium, with two dossiers to pursue, and Shepard had insisted that the entire crew take shore leave. Joker would've punched the console in front of him, if he wouldn't break his arm in the process. Instead, Joker opened the airlock, so that Shepard could go do her thing. He was thinking about locking her in her quarters later, when a flashing light on the console caught his attention.
"We have an incoming message." EDI's voice resounded throughout the bridge.
"Onscreen." He scrolled over the report from Illium Traffic Control. Then he paused. "EDI, who instructed them to wave docking fees?" A smile split his face with the reply. Maybe Shepard would find some time to relax on Illium after all.
Shepard was ushered into the office just in time to overhear the last few words of a call that the woman in the room was making.
"Have you faced an Asari commando unit before? Few humans have." Those words alone were enough to freeze Shepard in her tracks. Not so much the words themselves, as who last spoke them. And who was speaking them now.
No. Liara's nothing like her mother.
Then why is she threatening people?
Shepard was interrupted from her thoughts by Liara as she ended the call and turned to face her. The Asari's face brightened, and Shepard heart soared. The two women embraced, the embrace quickly turning into a kiss. Shepard felt warmth flood through her, as her skin brushed up against the woman that had once brought meaning back into her life. And then Liara did something unexpected. She pulled away. Extracting herself from Shepard's arms, she set her face and took a seat behind her desk, motioning for Shepard to have a seat opposite her. Shepard felt the joy flee from her as quickly as it came. A cold dread filled the newly created void.
She…she's moved on.
What did you expect?
I just…I don't know.
It's been two years. And didn't you want her to move on?
I…yes. I guess I did.
Setting her face as well, she took a seat opposite her onetime lover.
"What can I do for you?"
Joker watched as Shepard walked back through the Normandy's airlock. If he'd thought that a stay on Illium might've helped the Commander, one look at her showed him how wrong he was. There were dark circled under her eyes, which lacked their normal life. Her shoulders sagged slightly, and her movements were almost robotic. He opened his mouth to speak, but Shepard simply walked by him, telling him to take off. Both Samara and Thane had arrived earlier, but Shepard had stayed on Ilium for a while longer, helping Liara silence some of the Shadow Broker's sources. She then proceeded to her cabin and locked herself in. Garrus, Tali, and EDI all made separate attempts to talk to her, but Tali and Garrus were stopped by her locked door, and EDI only managed to get out a few words before Shepard muted her. After a few words with Joker, Tali and Garrus left the ship, determined to see a certain Asari.
"What the hell are you doing?" Garrus demanded, barging through Liara's office door.
She looked up, startled. Garrus stormed up to her desk, all but growling at her. Tali stood in the corner, arms crossed. It wasn't an easy thing, projecting emotion through a envirosuit helmet, but Tali managed it. She radiated fury.
"Do you have any idea what you're doing to her?" Liara tried to speak, but her voice wasn't cooperating, and in any case, Garrus didn't want to hear it. "Two years, she's been dead for two years, and that's that? She saved your life, she saved the Galaxy, she's saving it again now, she still finds time to help you with your Shadow Broker problems, and you treat her with complete indifference?" It took all of her concentration to keep her face stoic, her tears from leaking out. Garrus leaned towards her. "She cares about you Liara." He examined her closely. "And I thought you cared about her."
With that, he left. Tali paused to shoot Liara a withering glance before leaving as well. Finally, Liara couldn't hold it in any more. Several tears leaked from her eyes. She glanced at the box on her desk, pointed so that only she could see it's contents. Slowly, she brought a finger up to her lips, and then down to rest on the dogtags, just Shepard's name. Then she picked up the box, and calmly placed it in one of her desk drawers. The tears were gone. Her mask was back in place. It tore her up.