A/N: Another small time jump - the girls are five. I decided to throw in a little family drama to show off more of Liara's amazingness. And remember, this is just part 1. Part 2 is coming soon, which will include Shepard's "thank you." You'll see. X3 *wink*

Chapter 43

Liara slowly stretched her back and arms, then wiped sweat from her brow. The Thessian sun was beating down on her and she was exhausted, but it was a very satisfying exhaustion. She had taken her girls to Armali for the week to help clear rubble and begin rebuilding some local Eezo export warehouses. She and her daughters had been organizing the rubble in neat piles of metal they could melt down and reuse, any electronics that could be recycled and reused, and any furniture that could be repaired or reused. And since organizing things just happened to be one of her favorite things, she had of course volunteered for that project. She glanced over at Naiala and Elaria and grinned when she saw them copying her brow-wiping and back stretching. She had been keeping a very close eye on them through the entire rubble-organizing process, since she was the only one watching them. Shepard was away on the Citadel brokering new trade deals with the krogan, and Falere was at the research facility working on a possible breakthrough in their research. Digging through rubble wasn't the safest thing to do with her daughters, but the world wasn't going to rebuild itself and she wanted to teach her daughters the importance of hard work and helping their community.

"Whass this, Mama?" Naiala asked, holding up what looked like a piece of an air conditioning unit.

"It goes in the recycle pile," she replied, eyeballing a chunk of metal that looked suspiciously like a wall.

"But what is it?" her daughter insisted, focusing her sharp fuchsia eyes on it.

"The motor of an air conditioning unit," Liara replied, using her biotics to start lifting the piece of metal.

"How does it work?" Naiala pressed.

Elaria's curiosity was peaked by her sister's and she tromped over to investigate as well.

Liara dug her feet in the rubble around her as she strained to lift the large piece of scrap metal. "The Eezo core inside it converts hot air into cool air and blows it into a building," she said through gritted teeth.

Completely unaware of their mother's struggle, they trundled over to her after tossing the motor in the recycle pile. Just as they walked up to her and each put a hand on her thigh to offer "moral support," Liara felt the ground beneath them shudder. Her instincts flared in warning and she froze.

"Girls, can you do Mama a big favor for me? See those asari clear over there?" She nodded her head toward some asari working a few hundred meters away. "Can you run over there and tell them your Mama needs a little help? Whoever gets there first gets a double scoop of ice cream from that new shop down the street."

The two of them squealed in delight and were about to haul off when the ground suddenly collapsed beneath their feet before Liara even had time to react.

Instinct took over. She threw up a biotic barrier in the shape of a sphere around the three of them as they crashed down through several floors and into darkness. Liara gritted her teeth as the weight of the rubble above her bore down on her barrier, but she held firm. Among the roar of collapsing earth and rubble she heard her girls screaming in fright. Her maternal fire flared sharply and she doubled the strength of the barrier around them as the roar of the collapse finally settled down. She felt their little arms cling to each of her thighs and they buried their faces in her hips.

"Mama's here," Liara soothed. "It's going to be okay, Mama's got you."

Against the backdrop of her biotics, she could barely make out their tear-stained faces looking up at her. She desperately wanted to hug them and comfort them, but her arms were occupied maintaining the barrier. She took quick stock of their situation. Based on the distance they fell, she estimated they were several meters underground, and possibly in a basement of some kind. She sent out a pulse of biotics and a moment later her theory was proven correct when some of the rubble shifted and she saw a hallway not far away through the rubble.

She focused back on her trembling daughters and offered them a soothing smile. "Let's take some deep breaths with Mama, okay? I promise it will make you feel better."

"Are we stuck fowever?" Naiala asked, struggling to take a deep breath around broken sobs.

"Deep breath," Liara said again, demonstrating by taking a slow, deep breath. "And no, my darling little one. We are most certainly not going to be stuck forever. Mama's going to get you out. Fear not, my precious little ones."

She held the barrier steady as they took several breaths and their arms loosened a little around her legs.

"Okay my brave little warriors. See that opening over there? The one that looks like it leads to a hallway? We're going to walk over there, okay?"

"I don't wanna move," Elaria said softly.

"You don't? Why ever not?" Liara asked, carefully sending another biotic push to help clear some of the rubble in their way.

"Cuz we'll fall again."

"We won't fall again, little one. I promise," Liara soothed. She took a careful step forward, dragging her daughters with her.

"You pinky pwomise?" Elaria pressed.

Liara fought off a grin. Ever since Shepard taught them that endearing human saying, they used it at every opportunity. "I pinky promise. And just think of the story you can tell Daddy when we get out! Come on, out with it. What would you tell Daddy?" she encouraged as she took another cautious step forward.

Naiala sniffed. "I'd tell her we was trapped and it was dark and scary and but Mama saved us."

"Yeah I'd tell her you saved us, Mama!" Elaria agreed.

"But you can tell her how you helped. In fact, can you two take off my Omni-tool? There's a flashlight in it and we could probably use a little light." She carefully lowered her arm as she spoke, offering it to them. They quickly reached up and fumbled with the release button, argued for a couple seconds about which button turned it on, and which button to use to turn on the flashlight. When they finally got it working, they both squealed in delight.

"We did it, Mama!" they both exclaimed in their excitement.

"And I'm very proud of you," Liara said with a smile. "Now shine it toward that opening over there. Tell you what, when we get out of here, you're definitely both getting double scoops of ice cream."

"Can I has chocolate and bubbagum?" Elaria asked.

"An' can I has two scoops of vanilla wiff lots an' lots of camel syrup?" Naiala added.

Liara couldn't help a small giggle. Even in dire straights her daughters were still just the cutest thing ever. "Most definitely! Just don't give yourself a tummy ache on all that caramel, okay?"

"Okay!" Naiala replied cheerfully.

Liara took several more cautious steps forward then pushed more rubble off her barrier. The clatter made her girls jump a little, but they had considerably calmed since they landed. They made it to the hallway and she was surprised to find it mostly in tact, but she left her barrier up regardless.

"Whass this place, Mama?" Naiala asked, waving the Omni-light around the hall.

"I think it used to be a school," she replied, pausing when she noticed some pictures hanging on the wall. "An elementary . . ."

"Dis was a school?" Elaria asked. She ran her little fingers along one of the pictures. It was quite a lovely picture of a meadow of butterflies taking flight as a young asari ran in their midst.

Liara bit her lower lip to ward off emotion. The thought that children had very probably died here at the hands of the Reapers settled uncomfortably in her heart.

"Are we gonna hep rebewd a elmentry?" Naiala asked.

"We most certainly are," Liara replied, offering her daughters a small smile.

"Can I keep dis picture, Mama?" Elaria asked, carefully, almost reverently, peeling the butterfly picture from the wall.

"Of course," Liara replied. "Now let's get back to daylight so we can get ice cream in those little bellies of yours. What do you say?"

"Yay! We get ice cweam!" they both exclaimed happily.

O=O=O=O=O

Shepard was, at the moment, feeling very sympathetic to people diagnosed with debilitating anxiety disorders. She'd been informed of an accident at Armali several hours ago, and that Liara and her daughters had been buried in rubble for the past three hours. Fortunately, she was already on her way back to Thessia when she received the message, otherwise she probably would have gone postal trying to find a transport back. The asari who contacted her on Thessia assured her, her family was alive, but Shepard was going out of her mind with worry nonetheless. She'd lost people before and coped. She'd lost friends, her parents, half the damn galaxy and always found a way to cope. But the thought of losing her daughters, her wife . . .

As soon as the transport door opened to the landing pad, Shepard practically flew off the ship. Because of her council member status, immigration barely gave her a second glance as she ran down the gang plank and headed for the parking lot where she left her skycar. The trip across Armali was the longest of her life. Much of the city beneath her was in the process of being rebuilt, but all she saw was ruins and rubble and somewhere in it was her family. She'd already lost too much. She'd sacrificed too much. She wasn't prepared for the thought of losing her precious daughters, and Liara . . . Goddess, Liara. She couldn't live without Liara. Not now. Not after all they'd been through, after all they'd survived together . . .

Her skycar screeched in protest as she landed rather ungracefully near the coordinates she'd been given of her family's location, and jumped out before it had even fully stopped. Several rescue workers gave her alarmed looks but she hardly noticed. All her mind could process as she ran up to the collapsed building was the thought of her family. She knew they were here somewhere, among the ruins. Ruins. Goddess, she was surrounded by ruins. Ruins from the war, ashes of what the Reapers left behind, nightmares of countless bodies that haunted her . . . all of it was only bearable because she had something to live for. Liara, Naiala, and Elaria. And she'd almost lost them in these very ashes. Even when the Reapers were dead and gone five years, still they haunted her steps, they still cursed her, they were still drying to destroy and undo her . . .

"Daddy!"

The world around her stopped. She knew that little voice. Oh goddess, she knew that precious little voice . . .

Shepard's breath caught in her throat. She turned, praying to whatever gods would listen that she hadn't just imagined that sound. When the sight of two little asari running for her with outstretched arms met her eyes, a wave of relief broke over her. She covered her mouth in vain attempt to hide her emotion and fell to her knees. Elaria and Naiala flung their arms around her as soon as they reached her, and Shepard returned their embrace, scattering fierce kisses all over their faces all the while.

"Oh my girls, my precious little ones," she said around broken sobs, kissing them over and over, "I love you so much. Don't ever scare Daddy like that again. Please don't scare me like that. My heart can't take it. I love you too damn much."

"Mama saved us, Daddy," Elaria said proudly, sprinkling kisses oh Shepard's cheek.

"She used a big huge blue bubba an' held da whole bildin' up an' it didn't smash us cuz she held it!" Naiala explained helpfully.

Shepard looked up and saw the vision that was her wife walking toward her. She wore a smile so filled with love it made Shepard's heart flutter and more emotion to spill from her eyes. She stood, both daughters still held firmly in each arm, and moved to Liara. As soon as they reached each other, their lips fused in a kiss filled with gratitude and desperation and salty tears. Shepard could have kissed Liara for eternity, but she reminded herself where she was and decided to save her true thanks for later, when they were very much alone.

Everything around them ground to a halt as Shepard pulled away to look in those wonderful sapphire eyes. With tears streaming down her face, she mouthed "thank you," wishing like anything they were melded in that moment so Liara could feel just how incredibly grateful she truly was. The smile Liara gave her almost made her go weak at the knees. Liara mouthed back "I love you," and for a moment, they simply looked at each other and nothing else mattered but four people, a family reunited in the ashes of a war.

"Can we has bubba gum ice cweam now?" Naiala asked, shattering the moment happening between her parents.

Shepard couldn't stop a small laugh from escaping her lips and gave her wife an inquisitive look. Liara smiled and kissed Naiala's little crest. "I promised to get them ice cream at a new shop that opened down the street for being so brave when we were trapped."

"You two can have all the ice cream you can eat," Shepard proclaimed, causing both her daughters to squeal in delight.

About half an hour later, after cleaning dirt off and talking to rescue workers, Shepard and her family were sitting in the ice cream shop, Naiala on her lap and Elaria on Liara's, eating ice cream. Elaria was eating the very interesting combination of chocolate and bubble gum ice cream, and Naiala was stuffing her little face with vanilla with caramel swirls. Shepard still didn't have the stomach, because of the accident, to eat a whole dish of ice cream by herself, so she stole a lick from Elaria's every once in a while, causing her daughter to giggle every time she did. She kept her arm wrapped firmly around her daughter's little waist the entire time, as if to remind herself that she was really there, and her other hand held firmly to Liara's.

"So can Daddy sleep with all her girls tonight? And possibly for the next month or so?" Shepard asked, stealing another lick of Naiala's ice cream. "I think she needs a little reassurance that her girls are okay 'cause your father's really just kind of a big booby."

Naiala's face lit up at the prospect. "You mean we can seep in da big fuffy bed wiff you?"

"Only if you promise to snuggle me all night long," Shepard replied, making a series of "nom nom" motions on her little neck and cheeks. Naiala burst into a fit of giggles and retaliated by smearing a finger-full of ice cream on Shepard's cheek. Liara leaned over and licked the ice cream off, causing the human to blush furiously.

"Daddy, look what I found," Elaria said, unrolling a piece of paper and presenting it. "I found it in da school under all da stuff that fell on us. I wanna be a artsists when I gow up."

Shepard glanced down at the picture and felt another tug at her heartstrings. For some reason, the thought of her little daughter growing up to be an artist made her impossibly happy. She leaned over and kissed Elaria's cheek. "That's a very good find. We better frame it and put it in your room, hadn't we?"

"Yeah!" she replied with an excited smile. "Will you bewd me a fwame, Daddy?"

"Oh my little Elaria," Shepard smiled a bit dreamily, "I'd build you a moon and give it to you if you asked."

A/N: Hey guys! If you enjoy my writing and are looking for a story with actual plot (lol) then go check out my new collaboration with Rae D. Magdon called "The Flower of the Vine." It's on my profile. Go forth! Read! Follow/Fave/Review! Thank you so very much! ^_^ (And of course you continued support and reviews is much appreciated on this story as well). Also go to Rae's profile and read her awesome stuff and buy her books! She has a new one coming out on Tuesday! ^_^