Liara
Liara rubbed her forehead as a headache started to pulse. The human male on the other end of the vid call was being infuriatingly difficult. She gave him the information he requested from her. She would think he would be ecstatic to find his business partner was not embezzling millions from their company. It appeared the man did not care about the company's fortune, only wishing for some sort of incriminating evidence to blackmail his partner. This realization did nothing for her patience for the man.
Finally, she had enough.
"Have you ever faced an asari commando unit before? Few humans have," Liara said, echoing some of her mother's final word. It scared her, how ruthless she sounded, but she could not back down now. "I will make it simple. Either you pay me, or I flay you alive. With my mind!"
Liara ended the call with the now wide-eyed human. She doubted she would have to speak with him again.
It was then she realized there was another presence in the room. She turned, thinking Nyxeris had some important matter Liara needed to attend to. She was completely taken back when she saw that it was Troy standing in front of her, a wide grin on his face.
"Shepard!" she said with a hint of nervousness and much more surprise, using his surname as a shield. Liara had told the docking bay to forward all charges to her, readying for his inevitable arrival, but she had also told them to notify her upon said arrival. Maybe the previous call had kept her away from her terminal too long. "Nyxeris, hold my calls."
Troy closed the distance and pulled her close. His hands felt achingly comfortable and familiar on her hips. She wanted to melt into him, feel the way she had on the Normandy two years ago. But as he leaned in to kiss her, all she could feel was anxiety, trepidation, and dread. He would not be so warm and inviting if he knew what she had done.
His lips touched hers. They were eager and enthusiastic. She tried to match, but all Liara could muster was hesitation. She trembled against him, falling away quickly. Liara could not bear to look at him, so she turned her eyes downward and shook her head.
Liara wanted to feel the same as he did, but too much had happened, too much time had passed. Things were different. She was different. There was too much distance between then and now, and she did not know if the expanse could be bridged.
She took a step back and quickly headed to the other side of her desk. It was her barrier. Behind it, she was Liara T'Soni, information broker. She was hard and demanding there. She was protected.
Or at least she thought she would be. Her heart felt like it was tearing in two when she saw Troy's disappointed and distraught look as he took a seat.
"My sources said you were alive," Liara said, trying to sound cheerful. It sounded flat, even to her. "It is very good to see you."
She winced at her own words. Good to see you? With so much history between them, almost anything would have been better than "It is good to see you."
"You're threatening people now? And since when do you have sources?" Troy tried to hide the emotions in his voice, but Liara could tell how much her rejection affected him.
She mentally swore. He had heard that. The distance between them just seemed to keep growing.
"Oh, that… It was just a customer that was not happy with the information he received. He will pay before I have to do anything drastic. And I have many sources, contacts, and even a little hired muscle. I have been working as an information broker. It has paid the bills since you…" The thought brought back memories of fire and explosions on the first Normandy. It was almost too much. She needed to get the conversation off her. "Well, for the past two years. And now you are back, gunning for the Collectors with Cerberus."
His eyebrows twitched. They did so whenever he was fighting to hold back some emotion. It was small, but she had learned his little quirks long ago. She smiled at how little he had changed, though his familiar scar was gone. It surprised her how much she missed the blemish. Of course, that sentiment could be extended to all of Troy.
"I really shouldn't be surprised. You were always good at digging up information. If you know all that, you know I could use some help."
It hurt to hear she was regulated to "help," and it hurt even more to say what she had to next.
"I cannot, Troy. I am sorry. I have commitments here. Things I need to take care of."
"Things you need to take care of?" He leaned forward in his chair. "Are you in trouble, Liara? Do you need help?"
She shook her head. "No, no trouble. But it has been a long two years. I had things to do while you were gone. I have debts to repay." She remembered the small assignment she needed done. "Listen, if you want to help, I need someone with hacking expertise, someone I can trust. If you could disable security at key points around Illium, you could get me information I need. That would help me a great deal."
Troy's eyebrows twitched again, and his lips were pressed into a thin line. He was obviously agitated. "What's this all about? Can't you just talk to me, Cie – Liara?"
By the goddess, she wished she could, and it was frustrating her to no end. Almost being called by her nickname only to have him stop short was not helping either.
"Do not you think I want to, Troy? This is not because I do not trust you. This is Illium. Anything I say is being recorded."
He sat back in his chair and crossed his arms. He did not look any more relaxed. "Hacking a terminal sounds easy. Why do you need me?"
"I have no one else I trust. Hacking the security node will not get you the data. It just creates a minor glitch in the system. You will have a short time to find a local server left vulnerable and upload the data to my system. I am leaving my own system vulnerable so that the data can be imported during that short time. I need to be here to do that."
Troy looked pensive for a moment, and his eyes were hard. Finally, he stood up.
"If it'll help you, I'll take care of it."
He walked, leaving her alone to prepare for the incoming data.
It was not long before the first data packet came in. Liara opened her system for a moment, quickly closing it once she had downloaded the file. She had just stored it away when a second file came. Before she knew it, Troy had gotten her all three.
Her door slid open again, allowing Troy to enter. However, he was not alone this time. A salarian and familiar turian was with him.
"Troy! I am glad you are back." She looked to the turian. "It is good to see you again, Garrus. It has been too long."
"Yes, it has. We should all meet at the bar later and catch up."
Liara's eyes flashed to Troy. His face was the epitome of an empty expression.
"I would like that," she said with a polite smile. "Thank you again for getting me that system data. Here. It is not much, but hopefully it will help you on your mission."
Troy shook his head. "I'm not going to accept payment for helping you, Liara. I did this for you, not the reward. What did you learn from the data?"
He was playing it safe, keeping to neutral topics. She was not going to upset the balance.
"Do you remember the Shadow Broker? With the data you got me, I may be able to find information caches from his agents."
"Are you on the run from the Shadow Broker? I can help you."
Of course, Troy would offer to help. Even when he did not know where exactly they stood with each other, he was still willing.
"Actually," Liara corrected, "it would be more accurate to say that the Shadow Broker is on the run from me. We crossed paths not long after you died." While trying to find your body. "Since then, I have been working to take him down. With this data, I am a step closer."
"You can't come with me because you're after the Shadow Broker? What if I help you find him?" Troy asked.
She shook her head. "I am sorry, Shepard. The galaxy does not work that way. I need to find leads, trace information. I need to work. I cannot do that from the Normandy. I wish I could."
She did not tell him that she wanted to do this on her own. Liara had been relying on Troy since he saved her from that prothean prison on Therum. She felt like a burden, a burden to him, a burden to Feron, and she was tired of it.
There was also the problem with their substantial past and shaky grip on a possible future for them. She did not want to think about that, however.
"Liara, what did the Shadow Broker do to you?" Troy asked. "I've never seen you ready to execute someone in cold blood."
She had not realized she let the intensity of her hatred show through. Then she remembered he could read her just as easily as she read him.
"I was on a job with a friend," she explained. "The Shadow Broker's people caught us. My friend did not escape. I do not know if he is dead or being interrogated, but I need to find him. I owe him my life. And I need to make the Shadow Broker pay for what he did."
Troy was not about to let this line of questioning go. "You've spent two years of your life hunting the Shadow Broker? That's insane, Liara."
"You do not know what he did. You could not. You were gone! And we all did what we had to do after that." Her anger and passion that were creeping up before was plainly evident now. She needed to breathe. She needed to relax.
"Let us not argue," she said calmer. "I do not have many people in my life, and you are too important to me to lose."
Admitting that was like a small victory to herself, and Troy deflated in response.
"So what did the data tell you?" Troy asked. He looked as if he was tiring, like talking to her was draining. It used to be the opposite.
"It gave me a target. The Shadow Broker has several contacts here on Illium. The most powerful is someone called the Observer. Taking down the Observer will put me closer to the Shadow Broker. I could use your help. I need someone to reconstruct the data and piece together who it is."
"Do you have any specifics on these agents?" he asked.
"Unfortunately, no. Nyxeris was lucky to get as much as she did."
"I was happy to help, ma'am" her assistant interjected.
She always disliked how overly polite Nyxeris was, but it helped with her clientele. "The Shadow Broker only refers to his agents by race and profession," Liara continued. "The Observer is one of five agents: a turian, a salarian, a krogan, a batarian, and a vorcha."
"I'll reconstruct the data for you, Liara, and tell you what I find," Troy said before leaving again.
This job took longer than the last. It was almost an hour before Troy called her.
"Liara, all five of the suspects are male. The Observer is female. Something's not right – who gave you this info?"
"My assistant, Nyxeris. She got the information…" Liara started to put together the pieces together. Ever since hiring the asari, Liara had been finding more and more promising leads that went nowhere. "Nyxeris gave me the information." She hit the intercom. "Nyxeris, could I see you in here for a moment? Shepard, I will talk to you later."
Liara turned off the comm channel and stood up, preparing for the coming battle.
"Yes, ma'am?" Nyxeris said as she entered.
"Did he send you here because I was getting to close?" she asked, not wasting any time.
"Excuse me?"
"The Shadow Broker. He must be fairly worried if he sent one of his highest agents to watch me personally."
Nyxeris kept to her cover. "I'm sorry, but I don't understand what you're talking about."
"Stop with the act. I know you are the Observer. Troy gave me all the evidence I need."
The agent's response was one of Liara's chairs biotically thrown at her. Liara deflected it, surprised by the fierceness of the attack. She answered by sending a warp back. The pulse struck Nyxeris in the chest, and the destructive field ate away at her barrier and draining her energy.
She threw one last desperate attack. It connected but was not enough to drop Liara's barrier. The agent fell, exhausted. Liara lifted the traitor with her biotics.
"Tell me what you know about the Shadow Broker," she nearly yelled.
"I won't talk."
Liara looked over her former assistant. Broker agents were notoriously immune to torture, and when they finally did speak, if they lived that long, they told nothing substantial.
"I believe you." Liara twisted the asari's neck until it broke.
Liara dropped the body and walked back to her desk. She made a few calls to individuals that would help her get rid of the body without police involvement. She also started to look through Nyxeris' old files, making many interesting discoveries.
Her contacts had just taken away the body when Troy nearly ran back into her office, hand close to his pistol.
"Are you okay, Cielo?" he asked, his worry overriding the awkwardness before.
"I am fine, Troy," Liara said. It felt good not having to force the smile on her face. "Nyxeris was very talented. I imagine that had she been ordered to assassinate me, I would never have seen her coming. But her barriers needed practice. Practice I am afraid she will not be getting.
"She had some interesting data hidden away. I would not have caught her without you. I am one step closer to the Shadow Broker. Thank you, Troy."
He merely nodded, and the awkwardness returned. "What's your next step?"
"Now I gather information, peel away the layers of lies, and shine light into the shadows." The thought of closing in on her target heated her blood. "And when I find the Shadow Broker, I hit him with a biotic field so strong that what is left of his body will fit into a coffee cup."
"All that anger can't be just from what you told me. What else happened between you and the Shadow Broker?"
Troy was making this difficult for her. She did not want to admit everything today, not when this was the first time she had seen him alive in two years. But he would not stop until he was satisfied.
Liara stood. She could not look at him while she admitted her betrayal. "Did Cerberus ever tell you how they recovered your body? I… I gave it to them. I gave you to them, Troy. Because they said they could rebuild you. And to do that, I had to take you from the Shadow Broker. He was going to sell your corpse to the Collectors."
She paused. Troy had not said anything, no rebuke, no thanks. Liara turned, her curiosity overriding her fear. He revealed no emotion, his face blank.
Finally, he spoke. "Why didn't you tell me any of this before?"
He was not going easy on her. Not that she blamed him. Liara would be asking the same questions in his place as well.
"Because I screwed it up, Troy. I barely escaped with my own life."
She should not be speaking of this. It distracted her from her hunt. But Troy had a right to know, and Liara was the only one that knew the full story. By the goddess, she wished it was someone else who had to make the choices she had, someone else standing her and explaining it to Troy.
"And when I gave you to Cerberus," she continued, emotion thick in her voice, "I told myself I was doing it for you. For a chance to bring you back. But I knew Cerberus would use you for their own business, and I knew how much it would tear you up inside. And I let it happen. Because I could not let you go. I am sorry, Troy. I am so sorry."
"Look at me, Cielo."
She did.
"It's okay. You gave me a second chance. If I was in your position, I would have done the same thing. I would rather you be alive and hating me then dead. Luckily for you, I don't hate you, and I don't blame you."
Those words alone nearly made her cry. The years of guilt and torment lessened significantly. While what they had may have been left in the past, it was comforting to know Troy did not hold any grudge toward her for her part in his current situation.
"Thank you. I… I was afraid you would hate me."
A ghost of a smile crossed Troy's lips. "I could never hate you, Liara. Is there anything else you need from me?"
It was obvious he wanted to leave. She did not want to stay much longer either. Today had been an emotionally heavy and draining day with the discovery of new data in her hunt of the Shadow Broker, the realization that her assistant was an undercover Broker agent, and the return of her former partner, Troy Shepard. She knew they were both hanging on by a thread.
"No. You have done enough. If I find anything useful, I will let you know. For now, I need to do what I do."
Troy nodded and walked toward the door. Just before he exited, he turned and was about to say something. He must have thought better of it because he merely gave her an empty smile and a small wave. She returned the gesture with just as much vigor.
Later, Liara discovered that Troy had left Illium immediately after he left her office. It appeared he was only there to speak with her and could not bear staying any longer once he had. She could not exactly blame him. The changes between them were difficult for her to accept, even after two long years.
Author's Note:
Whew. Made it. This was a longer one, and I thought about splitting it in two but decided against it. This was one of the chapters that made me start this entire process. It has come a long way since back when I first envisioned it. I don't know if that is a good or bad thing, but there it is.
Next week I will be posting only once. It is Christmas, and I have a lot of family stuff I have to get throu - I mean, I get to spend time with my family. I'll be shooting for a Thursday post.
Thanks for reading and please review!