Chapter 4

Shepard sat with a heavy thud on the edge of her bed. Blackness blinded her window. She looked at her clock. She should feel tired. She should have recorded that argument over commerce and the relay. It would work better than any lullaby. The door buzzed. Shepard frowned and glanced at the clock again. She got up and crossed around the sunken sitting area. She opened the front door. Liara smiled.

"Shepard, you're all right?"

Shepard's eyes widened. "Liara, hey."

"I know it's late. You didn't check in with me. I got worried."

"Oh." Shepard remembered. "Right. Sorry. Come in."

Liara passed by her. She strolled into room just above the first step down to the couches. She glanced around at the kitchenette and bed before turning to the living room. Three couches horseshoed a coffee table facing a wall sized window dark with the night sky. Admittingly, it had a pretty posh sized view for being military barracks. Her window on Arturus had been little more than a porthole, and she's had a bunkmates to share the common area.

"This is nice, Shepard. I didn't realize they would give you such nice quarters."

"Lucky vacancy. Staff commanders don't usually get quarters like this."

"Being the first human Spectre and savior of the galaxy must fill some of the qualifications."

"I did put them on the application." Shepard grinned and strolled over to her.

Liara turned to her. "I was worried. How are you feeling?

"I'm sorry I forgot. I did mean to get back to you." Shepard ushered her down the steps to the couches. "Everything's clear. Whatever Miranda saw is gone. I'm perfectly normal."

"You're hardly normal, Shepard."

Shepard rounded the couch directly facing the window and flopped back. She patted the seat next to her.

"Things going well with Javik?"

Liara lowered herself stiffly onto the couch. "I think I'm no longer the only one getting a new view on protheans. If not for the war, he'd be the biggest story of the millennia."

"He probably both hates and expects to be the biggest story of the millennia."

"And, how are you liking it, Shepard?"

"Being the biggest story of the millennia?" Shepard studied her hands. Her calluses were fading. "I'd rather be a footnote on page eight, I think, than the headliner."

"What you did, Shepard, was astounding. If people are in awe, it's because they see that in you."

"I appreciate that, Liara." Shepard smiled. She leaned back deep into the couch cushions. "What about your other 'stuff?'"

"Being the shadow broker, you mean? It's challenging with the comm buoys down. Even most of my local contacts have gone dark."

"I imagine. We're in a hell of a state. Rebuilding from the war's going to be more work than fighting it."

"You don't believe that." Liara scooted back hesitantly then relaxed back into the cushions next to Shepard.

"Comm buoy's almost up," Shepard said. "The relay hit some snag. It'll be a year, at least. You heard about the Summit, right? For next year?" Liara shrugged. Shepard put her hands behind her head. "Supposed to make all these important decisions, get everyone together, decide things before the relay's up and everyone breaks. Gets me why the hell they think they need to wait. If there are important decisions, just get on making them."

"Shepard, there's a lot more information and voices to add. Once we start communicating with Thessia, Palavan, Sur Kesh, others again, the important decisions may change."

"You're not wrong," Shepard agreed, "but there are still decisions we could make right now."

"You've been going to the council meetings, correct? You aren't pushing for those decisions to be made?"

Shepard exhaled a long, hissing breath. "No."

"Why not? If you—"

"It's their arena, not mine. I'm a ship captain, not a politician."

"Why would the Alliance have you attending all the meetings then? They don't request your input during the discussions?"

"Sometimes. I've said things here and there. If they call on me, I pop up, say my piece. But, I've made enough decisions for everyone. Who even knows if the decisions I made were the right ones? Or the best ones? All that matters is that they're made. Now it's everyone else's turn. I'm sitting out on the rest."

Shepard stared out the window. Liara put a hand on Shepard's knee.

"You've made good decisions, Shepard. Curing the krogans, reconciling the quarians and the geth."

"Geth?" Shepard swallowed. "After the crucible fired, they all died. You know that, right?"

"We're not sure yet, and you couldn't have known. We needed to defeat the reapers. Whatever it cost, it had to be done, Shepard. It isn't your fault."

Shepard sat in silence for a moment. She took a deep breath.

"It doesn't need to be rehashed. The Alliance has thrown me at the council, and if they want, I have stuff to say. Always do, but I just want to be in space. On the Normandy. Meetings and backroom politics be damned."

Liara folded her hands in her lap. "Have they said how they're going to use you?"

"I meet with Admiral Hackett next week. We'll see. I can't just go from meeting to meeting shaking hands, Liara. Hell, it's killing me. I'm useless."

"You're not useless, Shepard. Far from. They just don't know how to use you yet."

"Hope they figure it out then."

The moon hung in the corner of the window. The stars spanned out around it. A light in the east shinned brightest. The citadel, once the center of intergalactic rule, now broken wreckage, just a bright light orbiting Earth's night sky.

"Makes you ponder things, doesn't it? The sky?" Liara turned her head on the cushion to look at Shepard. "In Thessia, we have two moons, one bigger than the other. It takes up almost the whole night sky. At least, it felt like it when I was a child. Mother would tell me about space travel. I couldn't imagine it then. I'd never been off planet. Now she's gone, and I've been off planet more than I've been on it and Thessia's a different place than I remember. Last time we were there - the destruction. You must feel the same way about Earth and the colonies. Horrifying knowing you'll never see it look like home again."

"You'll live a long time, Liara. You'll rebuild. See it flourish again."

"It won't be the same. It's changed, but so have I."

Shepard nodded. "Yeah, we've all changed."

"Yes. I know it isn't just me."

Silence hung around them. For once, silence wasn't bothering her. The quiet, the moon, the stillness – it wouldn't always be her enemy. Maybe she just needed more of this, time with the people she cared about. Soon enough, they'd all be shattered like stars, gone different ways. She'd lost so many already. Even Anderson was gone. It was starting over again - unfettered, no ties, like each beginning, the people that mattered to her reduced to transparent vid sessions, crossing paths only deliberately, or never.

"We'll keep in touch, Shepard."

Liara's eyes glimmered in the lamp light, and she smiled. Liara couldn't read minds but that felt damn close. They had mind melded more than once. Though, it wasn't really a mind meld in any true sense, more a controlled exchange of data and memory. The shared memory before the final battle had been brief and shallow but meaningful. Liara had only crested the surface of her mind. She couldn't know Shepard's thoughts. She certainly couldn't know things Shepard didn't even consciously know herself. Yet, Liara's eyes searched Shepard's with a sad smile spreading beneath.

"I know we'll keep in touch," Shepard turned her eyes back to the window, "but things will never be like they were. Just the cost of moving forward."

The image of them stretched back against the couch reflected back at her in the dark window.

Liara shifted next to her. "Asari live longer than most races. Losing others? It's something you grow up accepting. For a human though, time must mean much more."

"I don't know. Loss is loss. Can you really get used to it? Hurts each time, and that's normal. You think it feels worse than before, but you probably don't remember how bad it really hurt all the other times because memories fade. In the end, it heals and fades away too, and in the future, you won't even be able to recall how bad it hurt in this moment."

Shepard's hands dropped from cradling her head. She wished she had a drink in her hand. She intertwined her fingers in her lap instead. Liara reached over and covered Shepard's hand with hers.

"Shepard. Have you seen Kaidan?"

"Kaidan?" Shepard frowned. "Of course. You were there."

"You know I don't mean that. I mean, have you talked to him?"

"It's funny. He told me to talk to you."

"Yes, I …" Liara paused. "We had a lot of time on the Normandy. To talk. I realized things about him. Saw him in ways I hadn't before."

Shepard shifted on the couch. "Are you trying to tell me something, Liara? You and Kaidan—"

"No! No, Shepard." Liara bolted upright and turned wide eyes to her. "Nothing like that, I assure you. I know humans can be very jealous. If I inadvertently implied—"

"Jealous?"

"No, I'm not—That is, I don't mean to offend you, Shepard. By the Goddess, I'm saying the wrong thing, I know. Even after so long with humans, I still say the wrong thing."

"It's fine, Liara."

"I know, but if I—"

"I'm not offended," Shepard assured.

"Good," Liara paused. "I think you mean it."

"Of course, I do."

Liara's nodded slowly and relaxed her back. "I only meant to say that I think we, Kaidan and I, understood each other. I think he's a good person, and I think we found we had something in common."

Shepard tucked her hands under her arms and shrugged. She looked over at Liara.

"I'm glad you got on so well. Heard there were a lot of raw nerves, people grating on each other."

"Yes, of course. An intense time. So much unknown."

"Sure," Shepard said. "A long time, small ship, anxiety high. Bound to ignite tempers. Had to be rough."

"Yes, but you aren't answering my question. If it's inappropriate, you can tell me. It's only because I care that I ask, but I don't want to pry where I shouldn't."

Shepard sighed, tipped her head back against the cushions, and looked up at the ceiling. In the corner of Shepard's vision, Liara looked away.

"Forget I said anything, Shepard."

"Yes, we talked," Shepard said.

"Then you and Kaidan …"

"There is no 'me and Kaidan.'" Shepard pushed up off the couch. "There's me. Period. Kaidan. Period."

"I see."

"I know you care, but I can't talk about it." Shepard walked to the window, leaned a hand against the wall, and looked out.

"I understand. I shouldn't have said anything."

"It is what it is. I just … there's nothing to say."

"That's all right." Liara smoothed down the front of her jacket and stood. "I should leave. I'm glad everything was clear on Miranda's scan. Let me know if things change. We should still try Angelo's sometime."

"That's right. Yes."

Shepard walked Liara to the front door.

"I'll see you later, Shepard."

"Bye, Liara."

Once she was alone again, Shepard strolled over to her bed and sat. She sighed and hunched forward digging her fingers into her hair. It shouldn't be possible to be so tired and not be sleepy.