"Shepard Commander!" Legion exclaimed happily when he answered the door to the loft.
Some things didn't change, not even after two decades. He and Tali were still living in the same loft apartment in a building that looked like it should've been torn down twenty years ago. Tali had explained the rent was cheap and that this specific spot was perfect to hijacking a highspeed internet access. Shepard assumed that still applied. As did the fact that Legion was a strange one. Shepard had never figured out why he called her "Shepard Commander" while everyone else would've reversed the order of the title and the name. But over the years she'd worked with the kid (who was by now a grown man), she'd grown to consider a term of endearment almost.
"I figured I'd find you two nerds here, still sitting by your almighty Internet," Shepard smiled.
"It has gotten even faster since your last visit," Legion said happily.
"Shepard, I heard you'd gotten out, but I didn't... I wasn't sure..." Tali trailed off awkwardly after coming to see who was at the door.
"Well, here I am," Shepard shrugged with a grin.
Of course, her escape had made headline news, and she'd expected nothing less. Which was why she'd needed to look up her old friends, the people who had supported her throughout the whole ordeal, the people who still worked behind the scenes to try and get Shepard's conviction overturned. People who had once been colleagues, "civilian consultants", but had become Shepard's most trusted friends. Those in favor of Shepard's incarceration had begun to refer to the phenomena as "The Cult of Shepard" and had deemed people's obsession with Shepard insane and unhealthy.
She wasn't a spiritual leader, but she was charismatic and charming, the kind of a person people would happily follow to hell if need be. Countless of people had, back when she'd worked for the Alliance, she'd sent dozens of marines to their deaths, she'd gone to her own death more than once. It had never been a decision she'd made easily, but she'd always chosen the mission over a single marine's life. The biggest bullshit of the whole ordeal with the Alliance was that they had praised Shepard for this up until they'd gotten caught sanctioning such activities.
Tali threw her arms around Shepard's shoulders and hugged her tightly. She'd been one of the loudest activists trying to get Shepard released, and while Shepard hadn't been able to keep up with how she'd been doing recently, she knew Tali had never stopped.
"I missed you," she said.
"I missed you too, Tali," Shepard whispered and hugged her back.
"If you could just walk out of there like that, why didn't you do it sooner, you jerk?" Tali then scoffed and punched Shepard's shoulder.
"I didn't want it badly enough before, I would've failed. Besides, say I had escaped, then what?"
"What changed?" Legion asked.
"I'll explain later... but for now... I need you guys to help me find some people, starting with Saren Arterius."
"Of course, Commander," Legion agreed without even asking to hear why Shepard wanted to find Saren. That was what she'd always liked about him; he knew to do as he was told and not waste time questioning her.
"Is it okay if I take a shower and then take a little nap? I'm exhausted."
"Sure," Tali agreed. "I'll go get you something clean to wear after," she then said and began heading out of the room.
"Thank you."
Shepard undressed and went to the shower, taking the time to truly enjoy it for the first time in forever. The last time she'd found pleasure in showering had been when Samantha had shared hers with her, but the pleasure then had been derived from something completely different than just enjoying a cascade of hot water over her skin.
Right now, she enjoyed being able to wash her hair with a handful of shampoo, lathering away so excitedly there was foam everywhere. She enjoyed the coffee and vanilla scented conditioner, the honey facial scrub, the soap with a scent she couldn't place but guessed was some kind of an herb. And after a long, thorough cleanse, she got to wrap herself in a big towel that didn't have that sour smell Omega's towels had because they weren't properly washed. Shepard hadn't felt this clean in twenty years. It was refreshing in all kinds of different ways.
She finally exited the bathroom and went to the living room to ask about where she could get some shut eye.
"We were having trouble locating Saren, so we called in some help," Tali smiled over her shoulder when she noticed Shepard enter the room.
"Liara," Shepard breathed when she saw her.
Nowadays, doctor Liara T'Soni was mostly known for her tireless campaigning to get Shepard released from prison rather than her work as as scientist. She'd written several books detailing the events from another point of view, bringing up Shepard as a person, not as a marine, tried getting people to see who Shepard really was.
There'd been some success and the books had sold well, but probably for all the wrong reasons; people didn't genuinely care about who Shepard was as a human being, they just wanted to get a peek at the country's most infamous murderer's history from a previously unknown angle. The fact that everyone knew Shepard and Liara had been lovers didn't help make her come across as unbiased either which meant people weren't likely to take her seriously or want to pay attention to her efforts of correcting their views regarding Shepard.
Liara also happened to be in charge of the country's vastest intelligence network, so if someone needed to be found, Liara was the person who would know where to look, and if she didn't, she'd find someone else who did.
Liara went to Shepard and jumped into her arms, her hands in Shepard's hair, her legs around Shepard's waist as she kissed her so hard she nearly yanked Shepard's head off and bruised her lips, but she liked it that way. Without missing a beat, Shepard turned around and carried Liara onto the couch in the back of the dimly lit room.
"Uh, we're... just... gonna..." Tali stuttered awkwardly and began to back out of the room when Liara impatiently pushed her trousers down to her ankles and kicked them off her legs completely, and then tore off the towel from around Shepard as the redhead greedily grabbed and squeezed Liara's breasts while hungrily kissing her. Liara put her legs around Shepard's waist and moaned loudly into the kiss when Shepard slid into her eagerly.
"But I wanna watch," Legion complained. "Ow!" he then yelped when Tali grabbed him by his ear and dragged him out of the room, closing the door behind them but realizing that unfortunately, it did nothing to muffle out the loud moans of pleasure from Liara and the almost animalistic grunts from Shepard.
"Why do you want to find Saren?" Liara asked. They were still on the couch, Shepard on top of her and still between her legs, resting her head on Liara's chest. She'd refused to let Shepard move even after she'd come, and Shepard didn't mind, except for the getting sticky with their combined bodily fluids-part. Then again, at least she'd have an excuse to have another luxurious shower.
"I just want to talk to him," Shepard smirked. Liara ran her fingers through Shepard's hair and clenched her inner muscles around Shepard, eliciting a soft groan from her, the movement causing Shepard's by now flaccid cock to slip out completely.
"Don't lie to me or I won't help you."
"I want to try and see if I can convince him to issue a statement saying something along the lines of Alliance taking responsibility for the whole mess instead of blaming it all on me."
"Why would he do that?"
"Well, because I intend to be pointing a gun at him when I ask nicely," Shepard said and cupped one of Liara's breasts with her hand and reached to enclose her mouth around the nipple, sucking on it and flicking the tip of her tongue over it. Liara exhaled deeply, gripping Shepard's hair tighter as she held her close.
"I don't think that's gonna work, everyone is gonna suspect coercion. Besides, now you're a fugitive, you killed a CO, it's not like you'd just get to walk free even if Saren did confess to being responsible for the missions he sent you on."
"I'm not looking to get freed, I just want him to publicly take responsibility... and then I want to kill him for selling me out."
"You want revenge."
"I want a lot of things," Shepard muttered against Liara's breast and nudged herself higher, beginning to slowly get hard again.
"I can imagine you have a long list of things you've been wanting to do," Liara said, offering a lopsided smile. Shepard kissed her and reached between their bodies to guide herself in but was interrupted before she fully made it, the tip of her cock barely inside Liara.
"If you're done... we've found Saren's location," Tali called out awkwardly from the other room through the door.
"Give us twenty minutes..." Shepard replied and Liara quirked an eyebrow, squeezing her inner muscles around Shepard once more, coaxing the cock half inside her to grow harder. Shepard closed her eyes and inhaled deeply, a smile on her lips.
"Make it an hour," she then corrected and leaned to kiss Liara.