Hey, all, thanks for all your kind words so far. Rather than send off review replies for the last chapter, I'll answer 'em here. Feel free to skip this if you didn't review... but if you're a cool person, then read on, because you did.
AdonCa - well, let's say that at this point in time, that is how Liara feels. It's been two years since Shepard died, and she's had to function normally since then. It's a coping mechanism.
Avarenda - Read on, my friend.
CatsLoverRuka - Request granted! Tho' the reply is a little late. To make up for it, here's a bonus chapter.
Freudian Slips Cause Problems - I hope you'll keep looking forward to more, too!
Laureola - Mordin should be showing up in the next chapter, as well as some more of the ME2 crew.
MytheB - Thanks for your enthusiasm.
WhoElseBut - If you're saying what I think you're saying, thanks! Don't worry about the references to ME1 getting too obscure; if I don't remember it, don't expect to see it, heh.
The streets of Nos Astra were never dark.
The trading floor itself was silent, yes; the information kiosks were shut down for the night, the traders long since retired to their homes. But the rest of the city was alive; it hummed to itself in the melodies of neon and argon, of the eddies and flows of traffic, of the endless millions of its people talking, dancing, mating. Liara's office was comfortably removed from that raw, almost seductive current of life, and she watched it through glass, arms folded pensively over her breasts. After a while, she turned back to Alex, who had taken the same chair she had used earlier in the day.
"I'm not sure what to say, Shepard," Liara admitted, absently interlacing her fingers. "Embryonic Reapers - Prothean Collectors - it sounds too far-fetched to be true."
"So everyone tells me," Alex replied wryly, fiddling with the edge of her sleeve. She shook her head. "I wish you'd been there. I tried to copy the data from the medical terminal, but I didn't have time. If you could have seen… whatever the Reapers did to the Collectors, they weren't Protheans anymore. And they might do the same to us, if they don't just slaughter us all."
"The Council doesn't want to admit the danger," Liara mused. Her voice took on an odd edge. "Two years ago, I would have dropped everything to help you. Three years ago, I did." She took a breath. "I got to watch you die for my troubles." She turned back to the window, and when she spoke again, the small quaver in her voice was gone. "Times have changed, Alex. I'm not the idealistic girl from Therum anymore – I cannot help you kill yourself trying to save those too ignorant to care. I understand if you must – but I ask that you understand me in return. I have business of my own to attend to."
"The Shadow Broker," Alex said. It wasn't a question, but Liara nodded.
"I've told you what he did, and why he needs to die," she said, her eyes fixed on the streams of light below. "Whatever happens to me, the Shadow Broker must die."
"Liara – " Alex began. Liara held up a hand, interrupting her.
"Shepard, please," she replied, speaking softly. "I will not argue with you. Help me or get out of my way. I hate that it has come to this, but if you obstruct me I will move you."
The chair's runners whispered along the carpet, and Liara felt Alex's arms around her.
"I won't stop you, Liara," Alex murmured, and her breath was warm on Liara's neck. "For now, though… let me hold you again?"
Liara leaned back into her lover, closing her eyes against their sudden stinging heat. "Shepard…" she began, laying her hands over the Commander's. "I need to do this, Shepard. But I am afraid I'll become… like my mother. Like Benezia."
"There are worse things to become," Alex said quietly. Liara jerked in surprise, and Alex gave her a reassuring squeeze. "I mean it. Benezia was one of the strongest people I've ever met. She sent herself on what she had to know was a suicide mission, to talk down Saren Arterius. Her influence probably saved billions before and during the Battle of the Citadel. She had the very best of intentions."
"Yes, well, humans say that the road to Hell is paved with good intentions," Liara replied bitterly, turning away. "What of my intentions? How do you see them?"
"Liara, your mother had a strong will, but she had no one to count on – except you," Alex said, turning Liara back to face her again. "You freed her in the end, Little Wing, remember?" Liara turned her head, light sparking in brilliant trails down her cheeks. Alex placed her hand gently on her lover's cheek, bringing the scientist's blue eyes back to her own green. "Liara. Even if you can't help me, let me help you. No matter how far into the darkness you go to find the Shadow Broker, I'll be there for you. I will pull you back to me, kicking and screaming if I have to."
Liara stood still for a moment, then she leaned forward, pressing her lips to Shepard's. She tasted the salt of her own tears. Then her hands were moving, sliding smooth over soft skin, and by the Goddess it had been too long.
Later, when they had dressed again and lay together on the plush carpet, Liara snuggled closer under Alex's arm, savoring the warmth of the Commander's hand resting on her stomach.
"I missed you, Alex," she whispered, turning to face Shepard. "But this doesn't change things. Please, leave tomorrow with the Normandy. I am still years away from the Shadow Broker, but I'll keep in touch, and I promise that I will contact you before I do anything rash." She giggled, and the past two years fell away with the sound. "Although we met enough enemies head-on in the old days to make me wonder whether you'll be any help in terms of restraint."
"Tomorrow?" Alex groaned, craning her neck to kiss Liara's ear. "If you want me to, then I'll go. But I'd like you to meet the rest of my crew first. I'll give you a tour of the SR2, and introduce you to everyone. You'll recognize a few faces, I imagine."
Liara pushed herself up on an elbow, smiling down at Alex. "That sounds… nice. I think I'd enjoy that."
"Ain't that a shame, then." The voice was high, for a krogan's, and followed immediately by the bone-shuddering kt-chak of a Claymore heavy shotgun being pumped.
Liara's heart stopped. The door had been left unlocked – they had been careless, on Illium, where careless was as good as dead -
Alex pushed Liara away, rolling toward the desk that separated them from the krogan. Liara threw up a biotic field as the shotgun roared, wincing as the report of the blast hit her like a physical blow. Overhead, the deflected pellets shredded the metal ceiling like tissue paper, showering scraps into the office.
"Shepard!" Liara shouted, rolling to her feet. The krogan cocked her shotgun again, watching her with a lazy, self-assured air. Alex stood, slamming bullets methodically into the krogan's heavy helmet. Liara's Kessler was an old model, not retrofitted with the geth heat-sink technology that had become standard, and the cooling slits on the sides of the barrel hissed as they vented. Alex swore as the vapor scalded her unprotected hand, dropping the pistol.
"Heh. Bad idea," the krogan laughed, pumping her shotgun again. The low-power rounds had barely dented her thick armor. She took a step forward.
"Wait!" Alex shouted, stepping between the shotgun and Liara. "Wait. I want to fight you one-on-one. The krogan way. Honorably."
The mercenary cocked her head, her expression unreadable. "Honorably? I'm a merc, bitch." She raised the Claymore, not bothering to sight. At this range, the bullets would tear through both the human and the asari, and probably clear out the window, too. "I don't give a shit about hon—"
"Liara!" Alex shouted, falling to a crouch. The scientist's eyes glowed white, and she raised a hand, slamming the desk forward into the krogan. The furniture's momentum flung the mercenary bodily to the far wall, and she grunted as she was pinioned between the door and the metal desk.
"Rragh, damnit," she roared, struggling against the crushing force of Liara's push. "Both of you –" she broke off as Shepard, propelled by another biotic push, hit the desk at speed, driving the breath from her lungs even through her armor. Face-to-face with her target, the krogan looked up at the human, not bothering to conceal her scorn.
"And what the hell are you gonna do, huh?" she asked, voice dripping venom. She flexed mightily, pressing outward against the biotic field that held her in place. Metal shrieked as the desk began to give way, crushed between two inexorable forces.
"This," Alex replied simply. She raised the Kessler, still slowly leaking steam, and pressed the barrel against the raised metal eyepiece of the krogan's helmet.
A two-year-old Kessler IV-series pistol can fire sixteen shots before it overheats. It took four to smash through the reinforced lens.
"I wonder who sent her," Alex mused when it was done, absently cradling her right hand. The pistol lay on its side several feet away, blowing tendrils of pearlescent vapor into the air. Liara joined Alex at the door and sighed, wrapping her lover's injured hand in a shimmering biotic field.
"Hiring a Blood Pack assassin is not the Shadow Broker's way," she muttered, more to herself than to Shepard. "Certainly not a krogan with a Claymore." She raised her hand, and the desk slid slowly aside, pushing a lazy wave of deep-crimson blood ahead of it. The door whooshed open, and the pair stepped out into the stairwell. Liara took a deep breath of the lukewarm night air, then gently pulled Alex along. "Come on, Alex. Your hand needs to be looked at."
Liara let the Commander lead the way back to the docks, only half paying attention to Shepard's mostly-good-natured curses or even the route they were following. The other half of her mind turned in circles, wheels within wheels, shadows within shadows... and she didn't like where the revolutions were leading her.
Bah. These chapters always look longer in Word.
Anyway, the plot thickens! To be honest, I'm kind of disappointed I had to kill off the female krogan. She ended up with more personality than I had originally figured for her... oh well.
No word on when Part 4'll be done. It's not done as of the posting, but I'll spend some quality time on it and see what I end up with in a few days.
Until then, find peace in the embrace of the Goddess. (And review.)