She'd long been familiar with the way that memories that had once been sweet could curdle, souring to the point that recalling them brought only pain. Amelia, her first girlfriend, had been pale and slim, lovely and wild. They'd been fourteen and it had only lasted a few months, but even afterwards, thinking of her had made Melanie Shepard smile. Stealing kisses in the back of classes they only intermittently attended, sneaking into abandoned buildings to fool around, those were good times in what had been a bad life. Two years later though, Amelia had overdosed and it all turned to poison, every moment with her saturated with the image of her body lying on the floor of the filthy apartment where they'd found her.

Over and over, Melanie had relearned that lesson. Ash reciting poetry to her after missions, Mordin's arguments with himself while he worked, EDI's dry banter with Joker: all the little things she'd enjoyed about the people she'd lost felt hollow after they were gone.

She'd known that the hurt of the bad times would lessen eventually. Her hungry years as a girl, the losses she'd suffered in war, she'd had a lot of practice watching them slowly lose their edge. She'd always been tough, always able to move on, but what she hadn't expected was that sometimes, things not only didn't burn as much as they used to, they could actually make her smile. She'd learned that with Liara.

For her last birthday, Shepard had given the information broker a necklace, an intricate design based on one of the Prothean memories that still rested in the back of her brain. Liara loved it, had kissed Melanie on the forehead and laughed that it was nice having the Cipher up there.

Once, Shepard had been afraid that the asari had only been interested in her because of her visions, and when she'd rejected Liara after Feros, it had been in part for that reason. Melanie had been wrong though, wrong about how the scientist felt, wrong about her own desires, and when she realized it, when she knew she loved Liara and feared she'd lost her chance, her mistake was like a knife in her gut. Even later, when they'd finally found each other, it stung every time Melanie was reminded of how she'd screwed up. The galaxy was falling apart around them, and she was ashamed that she'd thrown away so much of the time they might have had because of her insecurities and fears.

Seven years had gone by since then. The war had been won, she and Liara had built a home together, gotten married, and were expecting their first daughter, and incrementally, the memory of her mistake had changed. She'd acted, under tremendous stress, like an idiot. God knew there were worse mistakes being made back then; it's not like she'd decided to, say, disbelieve in the Reapers. With their love for each other unquestionable and a lifetime together to look forward to, a little missed time wasn't some soul-crushing shame anymore. It was instead just an endearingly foolish part of their story, like meeting your future wife after she got herself stuck in a Prothean stasis trap. So a comment that might once have made her wince instead made her chuckle, and that later night, gazing at Liara lying in bed wearing the necklace and nothing else, it was the furthest thing from her mind.

So why was she remembering it now? Probably, she reflected, it was her location. After seven years of repairs, the Citadel was finally going operational again and no place, maybe not even the Normandy, carried more memories, both good and bad. Shepard was speaking tomorrow at the ceremony that would officially reopen the massive space station, but she'd arrived early and spent the day alone, visiting all of the places where it had shaped her life.

It was here that she'd met many of her closest friends: Garrus, and Tali, and Wrex, all in the course of a single, crazy day, and that she'd lost some too; Kirrahe and Anderson had both fallen on the Citadel. It was the place that many of her most persistent enemies had died, where Saren and the Illusive Man had shot themselves, and that she had killed Udina and Balak. Above all, it was the place that she'd made her fateful choice and destroyed the Reapers. And it was here, right on the spot she was standing, that she'd first kissed Liara T'Soni.

She looked out over the railing at the new gardens that had been planted. They weren't as lush as they'd been, but that would just take time. God, she'd been so nervous that day. The way that Liara had stammered when Melanie had suggested they might be good together seemed so adorable now, but then, her breath had nearly stopped while she waited for the scientist's answer.

The public wasn't being allowed on the Citadel until after the ceremony, so the footsteps behind her stood out amid the silence of the Presidium. Turning, Shepard smiled to see her wife standing there in the same white and blue coat and pants she'd been wearing in Melanie's memory. Liara was only 6 months along and her pregnancy hadn't yet required new clothes; asari took 15 months to carry a child to term and the physical changes wouldn't become visible until around month 9.

"I suspected that eventually you would make your way here."

"Hey, it was our spot, Liara. You know, I had to pull some strings with the planning committee to make sure they rebuilt it the way it was."

"I appreciate that. I know how much you detest dealing with bureaucracy."

"It was worth it. Besides, I think a garden does more for the Presidium than another giant screen showing ads for 'Blasto Gets a Tentacle-Job,' or whatever else they would've put in it's place."

Liara's laugh was light and happy as she moved to put her arms around her wife.

"Nice to see you in that outfit again. Thinking of recreating our first kiss?"

"Mm, that and perhaps a bit more. After all, this time we have a great deal more privacy."

As their lips met and Melanie's hands slid over the textured fabric of her wife's jacket, she decided that that was definitely a memory worth making.