The moment was interrupted by the beeping of the intercom, eliciting a sigh of irritation from Shepard.

"Do we have to answer it?" she asked as Liara rose from the bed.

"It is probably your crew, annoyed that I have been monopolizing you."

"I'm off-duty."

"They are your friends."

"Fine, go ahead."

Enjoying the sight of Liara's cute butt as she walked to the desk somewhat mitigated Melanie's annoyance at the call, which turned out to be from Garrus.

"Wasn't sure what you two were up to," he snarked, "But Tali and I were wondering if we could come catch up at some point."

Liara glanced over at the commander, who nodded, and she replied, "Certainly. Let us have an hour."

After the call ended, Shepard looked quizzically at her. "An hour?"

"We do need to shower."

At first Shepard thought the asari wanted the time for two showers, but when her girlfriend slipped in behind her, the Specter suspected she had a different motivation in mind. Liara went slowly at first, helping the still-sore commander to wash while finding opportunities to let her hands linger in all the places she knew Melanie was sensitive.

The warmth of the water, the feel of Liara's wet skin pressed against her, and the brush of the asari's fingers over her body all combined wonderfully, the pain of memory and of her injuries melting away, replaced by far more pleasant sensations. At first, she simply felt soothed, but as Liara's hands began to trace her breasts while she kissed the Specter's neck, desire started to rise within in her.

As the archeologist dropped to her knees and begun licking and kissing her way up her thigh, Melanie did manage a mild protest on behalf of her injured leg, "Liara, I don't mean to, ah, complain, but you are making it hard for me to stand."

"Allow me to worry about that," the information broker reassured her, and with a blue flash, Liara's biotics enveloped Melanie in a soft cocoon, supporting the commander as her girlfriend's tongue returned to her slick skin.

When Liara's mouth closed around her clit, Melanie sighed happily, losing herself in the feeling, the biotics allowing her to focus on nothing but the pleasure her lover was giving her. Even as her tongue flicked across the Specter's bud, Liara's hands caressed her body, one of them stroking her hip while the other rested on her stomach, her touch both intimate and delightful.

Melanie came hard against her lover's warm mouth, her climax leaving her blissfully drained as she collapsed into the biotic cushion. The asari rose, planting a tender kiss on Shepard's lips before turning off the water. As the commander's legs steadied themselves enough after her orgasm that she could make it back to her feet, she turned to Liara, offering to return the favor.

"Do not worry, you are still recovering and I wanted to do this for you. You have been through so much, and you deserve some pampering."

"You deserve something too," Shepard protested with a kiss.

"There will be plenty of time for that. Besides, I enjoyed it."

"You are very, very good to me and I love you, Liara."

"And I love you, Melanie. Now, we had better dry off and get dressed unless we want our friends to find us naked when they arrive."

Liara donned some grey N7 sweats Melanie had lying around while the commander put on a spare uniform, managing to beat Garrus and Tali's arrival by a few minutes. Shepard hugged both of them and as they all sat down around the table in her cabin, she noticed the absence of a tension that she had hardly considered before today. In the three years since they'd met, the possibility that they would all be dead soon had always hung over them, and now that it's gone, there's a lightness to their conversation.

Garrus caught her up on current events. The damage to the relays had left travel impossible for weeks, but though many of them were still not repaired, the planning for the peace had already begun. For a little while at least, their joint struggle and shared victory seemed to have prompted a spirit of cooperation among the disparate species. "Of course," the turian qualified, "Not everyone is the recipient of such charitable sentiments."

Tali sighed. "Keelah! The Salarians..."

Garrus gave that sarcastic smile of his. "Their decision to sit this one out has not exactly made them a lot of friends. They've been trying out pretty much every excuse in the book, but they're almost certain to forfeit their seat on the Council when it gets reconstituted. Probably the Quarians or the Krogan will replace them. Maybe both."

"They deserve to lose it." Shepard concurred. "The Delatross made her choice; she can't complain about how it turned out. But we shouldn't hold a grudge forever. Salarians died in this war too."

"Mordin," Garrus recalled.

"And Kirrahe," Shepard added. "A lot of people from STG in the last battle as well."

"That is true," Liara said, but thinking of what they'd seen on Sur'kesh, she continued, half-jokingly, "However, we should warn them that if they try to uplift the Yahg, we will take it poorly. I would prefer not to end up like the first Shadow Broker."

Melanie laughed. "I don't know; that last yahg wasn't so bad. We did kick his ass pretty thoroughly."

"I suppose that we did. It was impressive that you bested something that big in close combat."

"Hey, you dropped the lightning on him."

"Only after you got him into position."

"Of course you start going on about one of the battles I wasn't in," Garrus complained, his voice filled with an overwrought tone of fake resentment.

Tali rubbed a suited hand over his leg, "You should be glad that you missed it. Mordin got a desk thrown on him."

Soon after that, Kaidan dropped by as well and their talk ended up turning to the early missions they had all shared: the hunt for Saren and the Conduit. It's Kaidan who said what many of them were thinking, "Who would have imagined back then that we'd think of those as the good old days?"

"The universe did throw a particularly impressive quantity of trouble at us," Garrus observed. "When you have to start ordering the Reapers you've killed by difficulty, you probably annoyed somebody up there."

"I think our days of Reaper killing are over." Shepard's tone was light but there was a sense of relief underlying her words that caused Liara to place an arm around her lover, pulling her close.

"It's true, Shepard. All we have to do now is the easy stuff, like rebuilding a galaxy," Garrus cracked back.

Eventually, the others left and Shepard told Liara that she wanted to check in with the rest of the crew while the information broker went back to her quarters to change and catch up on a little work. "The walk of shame," the commander thought with a suppressed laugh as she watched her girlfriend head to the lift in her N7 sweats.

When she got off the elevator, Shepard found herself starring at the memorial wall. All the names there represented losses, but it's to her dead squad-mates that she found her thoughts turning, especially Ashley Williams. Her death had been maybe the hardest of them all, especially since it had been the commander's choice to leave her behind, but she was comforted that a good soldier like Ash would have appreciated the victory her sacrifice had helped to win. She wondered what became of the son that Thane had wanted to save and if Legion could have prevented the Geth from working with the Reapers. She remembered Mordin, and Zaeed, both dying trying to atone in different ways for the mistakes they'd made and she was sorry that she couldn't have been there when EDI and Anderson's names were added.

Though distracted, her trained ear still recognized the heavy sound of James' footsteps. "Almost had you up there, Lola."

"So I heard."

"After the Citadel lit up like a Christmas tree, we were all worried, and when nobody heard anything from you, we didn't know what else to think. Liara was going to do it. It was killing her, but I guess she thought she owed it to you. We were here for the ceremony when the call came in. Quite a smile on your girl's face."

They chatted for a bit, talking about the future. He'd decided to join the N7s, and she was happy for him. He was a good soldier, and even if he was a bit of pain in the ass, it was in a good-hearted way.

As she was leaving, he added "I almost forgot to thank you, Commander."

"For saving the galaxy?" she asked, knowing that wouldn't be the answer.

"Nah, everyone else can do that. Because I realized that me and everybody else who served on this ship will never have to buy our own drinks again."

Javik was more somber with his gratitude. "Commander, I am in your debt. In my heart, I did not truly believe that I would see the day the Reapers were defeated. It was a privilege to be with you in the final battle."

"I owed you that much. We may have won the war in this cycle, but without everything your people did: the beacons, disabling the Keeper signal, the plans for the Crucible, we never would have had a chance."

"And finally, thanks to you, their ghosts can rest. What will you do now, Shepard? Will you and the asari remain joined?"

"Tactful as always, Javik. But yes, we will."

"I imagine I will see you a good deal then, if Doctor T'Soni and I are to write our book."

She found Joker in the cockpit as always, but there was a hollowness in his voice in place of his usual sarcastic demeanor. "Shepard. Glad you made it out alive."

"You too, Jeff. And nice job saving the ship one more time. Liara said you had to do some pretty fancy flying when the Crucible fired."

"Thanks, Commander. But I guess you heard not everyone made it."

She nodded but she wasn't sure quite what to tell Joker. It was her choice that had caused the AI's death; she believed it was the right one, but he didn't need to hear that right then. "It wasn't what anyone wanted, what happened to EDI. It was like the relays…"

"She wasn't just some piece of tech!" Jeff screamed back at her, "She was…"

"I know," Melanie said softly, "She was my friend, and I'm sorry," and there was nothing else she could say right then that would have helped. He had loved EDI, and she was gone, and neither of them could change that.

Samantha Traynor was upbeat, telling Shepard that though her time on the Normandy was the most important work she'd ever done, she was eager to get back to civilization, at least what was left of it. Melanie couldn't help but tease her a bit, asking if that included real showers.

"It certainly does, Commander. Speaking of which, I have a bit of a confession to make. When I said I had a hot date lined up when I was using yours, I was hoping it would have been with you."

"I hate to burst your bubble, but it wasn't that hard to guess."

"Well, then, thank you for not making a fool out of me."

"Don't think I wasn't tempted to join you, but…"

"I get it. You love Liara. I'll be fine; I just won't get to tell everyone I bagged the great Commander Shepard."

Melanie smiled at that. She really did like the adorable young ensign, but compared with how she felt about Liara, it was no contest. There's no one that she'd ever cared for more, wanted more, or was more able to trust, and the thought that she could really spend her future with after everything they'd been through her was absolutely incredible.

The future. God, what an idea. For years, she would have said "the rest of my life," with the implication being, "however long that is." Now, she could imagine a tomorrow, a home, children someday, a life beyond the war; a life with Liara T'Soni.

She ate dinner with the crew, catching up with those she hadn't seen yet, enjoying the easy camaraderie of soldiers who'd been through hell together and knew they'd come out on the other side. Afterwards, tired but happy, she made her way back up to her cabin to find Liara, undressed, waiting for her in bed.

"Not that I'm complaining but what happened to new clothes?"

"They are over there on the dresser, love, but it is late and I just want to hold you now."

Shepard slipped out of her uniform and crawled under the sheets next to the woman she loved. It felt so right, her fatigue melting into Liara's embrace, and Melanie knew that she was home at last.

And that's the end. Thanks for reading. Since you made it through 23,000 words, hopefully you found the story interesting. Please consider leaving feedback, and if you want to read more with Melanie, check out Home Life, a generally light-hearted look at her life with Liara after the war.