Dazed, Liara struggled to focus. The only thing that helped sober her up faster was this most unsettling and ominous feeling gnawing away at her, despite the jests and jovial appearance of the Commander seemingly catching up with an old friend - a gang member, from what Finch revealed to her. She was... She didn't know what she was, what she felt. She couldn't deny her curiosity, but she'd wished she could deny the memories from what she'd seen in her meld with Gale.

Melancholy hung like a curtain in the back of whatever it was that the vanguard was trying to portray, renewing efforts to keep up appearances with other eyes falling upon them whenever Finch would raise his voice.

What was most befuddling was how Gale and Finch would laugh, but it never reached their eyes. That rabid varren viciousness was more prominent in the Commander's now-dull eyes, and it unnerved Liara. She wasn't drunk enough to fall for the act that everything was all happy old memories being shared, here. She shrunk a little where she stood when Finch's rabid gaze fell back on her.

"Never took ya for likin' squid, Red," he chuckled, his smirk growing when he'd looked back at the Commander. "Weren't you always disgusted by seafood?"

Something about the way Gale's posture shifted, beckoning in the threat of a storm raging through - and the windows that snapped shut to hide it away. The archaeologist stepped behind Gale, unhinged when a firm hand snapped over her wrist to stop her from taking another step. She didn't really plan to escape, but she felt the desperation through the bruising fingers winding tighter and hissed in pain.

"Sorry, love," Gale quickly ushered over her shoulder, then looked back at Finch. "Times 'ave changed my palate. Opened my mind a bit so I ain't so basic anymore, yeah? Say, are any of the others from the gang here with ya? Is Garrett still rolling around? We can take whatever business you want with me back to them. I'd like to catch up with 'em too."

Finch seemed surprised, his eyebrow arching. "That was easier than I thought it'd be."

"What, y'thought you'd have to threaten me with some blackmail, first? I still remember how the game is played, Finch. I ain't change that much - the Tenth Street Reds will always be my home. But we should take this somewhere else, it'd be stupid to do business out here. We might as well go ask C-Sec for cuffs to slap on ourselves, then."

Dread roiled viciously through Liara's stomach. She gaped and stared at the back of the human's head, unsure if she trusted her aurals and what she was hearing right now. The fingers around her wrist pulled her along, gently, when Finch shrugged and led the way of wherever they were to go.

Wherever it was, it was to chat about crime, wasn't it?

"Maybe the Commander wasn't in that type of gang? Maybe it was... Maybe it was a good gang, of fellow orphans bonded together to help each other survive."

Tides take it all, no amount of alcohol could trick her into believing something so foolish - or ignore the whole truths of it all. She'd resisted the pull, a little, wanting to break free. She recoiled and leaned back when Gale stole a quick moment to twist and whisper in her aural.

"Please trust me, love. I'll need you to stay 'til I'll need you to get back to the Normandy. All those drills are about to come in handy."

Pain zinged down Liara's tongue when she'd bit it to stop herself from groaning. She absolutely dreaded what was to come with certainty, now.

And what part of the Commander was still thinking running while drunk was a good idea?!

Neon lights blinded Liara, the glaring annoyance that had helped sober up a touch. She focused on her observations and her surroundings, trying to draw a mental map so that she wouldn't be so horrendously lost on her run back to the Normandy. She didn't like what this implied - that she was what was going to be the defining factor on whether or not Gale would get reliable reinforcements.

Fire licked her veins as she called on every vestige of strength in her body, ready to go as soon as she was given the signal. She wouldn't fail Shepard. She would prove, Goddess damn it all, that the bane of her existence would prove to be the source of her power because she willed it as such.

Upon arrival to the Lower Wards and navigating shady alleys, that resolve wavered. She'd stolen more and more glances out of concern when she felt something was off in the way that Gale still held onto her. When that warmth left her wrist, she tried to get a better look at the human's face, whilst making herself scarce in the eyes of all the other seedy humans that clearly didn't cherish her presence, with the way they all glared at her in disgust.

Something snaked around her stomach and coiled tightly upon watching how the Commander's demeanour shifted completely. She'd matched the vicious atmosphere perfectly with the way she'd thrown her grins and pats on the backs around. It was the second she'd utilized when she'd turned around to head back to Liara, safe from all the prying varren eyes, that she'd nodded and mouthed the word: Normandy.

Out Liara broke into a run, ignoring the panicked cries behind her, and the reassuring urges on Gale's end that the 'squid' wouldn't be a problem.

"Is she calling me the squid?" T'Soni inwardly huffed. "I am not their seafood!"

Goddess, but this place was a maze. She swore she was going in circles, blushing deeply upon almost running up to Chora's Den. She pivoted sharply and rushed back, zipping past the same alleyway she'd left - and cursing herself when her eyes had met Gale's, when the human seemed to look over her shoulder in confusion over the commotion. Liara pushed past that awkwardness, wishing a mako would roll over her already, and waved cheerily as she continued running.

Insanity almost bubbled up with laughter when Gale had actually waved back.

"I'll get this right. She's counting on me." A beat for doubt. "Where's an Avina terminal?!"

It clicked in too late - an elevator ride up to the Presidium late - that Gale seemed preoccupied, and Liara fervently pushed the buttons to race back down. She wouldn't make it in time to the Normandy, to get reinforcements. She would have to be the reinforcements.

What on Thessia was even happening anymore?

Adrenaline guided her feet, forcing herself to push past screaming legs that just wanted to give up on her. She'd heaved heavily, hiccuping every now and then, but her concern bleated out everything else when she'd heard distant yells and curses. She didn't trust her sense of direction anymore, instead holding her breath as she zeroed in to where she'd thought the yelling was coming from. She came around the corner, her entire body vibrating instinctively with biotics as she erected a kinetic barrier.

All the imagination of being a hero flew right out the window as soon as Liara slipped in her scramble around the corner, falling harsh on her knees and sliding a bit. She was mortified to have learned she'd stopped an all-out brawl with all the bruised and bloodied humans staring at her then.

At least the reprieve was put to good use when Gale escaped her trap, throwing her head back to smash into the man's nose to get him to release her shoulders. She'd ducked and tackled another to the ground, but instead of fighting the others, she ran over and offered her hand to Liara - only to grab her wrist and pull her up roughly.

Try as she might, Liara could not ignore the way the vanguard smirked, and she was unfortunately certain as to what for.

"Got my back, love?" Gale's words bounced cheekily as they braced backs, raising her bloodied fists back up. "Y'sure you wanna do this? Still time to slip on outta here."

"Don't say slip," Liara groaned.

A dizzy rush swept over her briefly, her mind still a little fogged and liquored up. She pressed harder against the vanguard's back as she'd watched the smirking humans spread out more, trapping them within a circle. Her heart hammered at her chest, her knees quivered, her brain screamed incoherently about the insanity of this all. They were brawling in the Lower Wards like thugs. She didn't need to look behind her to know - and feel with the way Gale was vibrating herself - that she was having fun with this.

"How do her and I get along, again? Wrex should be here instead."

"Don't push yourself, you still need to recover," she warned under her breath. She looked over in disbelief when Gale snorted with laughter - before she took off charging.

"Yes mum, thanks mum!"

"Don't say mom," Liara groaned again.

Two of the humans made their move and began barrelling over to subdue her, and her hand cut through the air with precision to dictate the direction biotics would fling them towards.

She was horrified that she didn't quite calculate the potential for collateral damage.

Gale's yelp echoed in the alley alongside those that barrelled along from the collision of bodies, and suddenly the rest of the gang left standing saw her as a threat. She almost wanted to wave her hands and deny it, to hail her apologies along for something that she didn't mean nor want to do. Why on Thessia were they all fighting each other, anyways?

"Wasn't Gale one of them, once? What's happened?"

Questions that wouldn't get the time to be answered, as she'd resorted to using her biotics to defend herself and keep the humans at bay. She'd lifted, trapped in stasis fields, and pushed back with a more mindful control of how much force she was exerting. She was used to having to contend with enemies that had suits usually equipped with gravimetric emitters of some kind to artificially increase mass.

Goddess blast it all, it was so hard to focus to this degree when the world was still spinning.

Another yelp from Gale immediately had Liara lurching with worry - and a new wave of mortification when she'd accidentally employed her biotics on the wrong human.

"They all look the same," defended the part of pride that dearly wanted to salvage some measure of self-respect left.

Dangled along, the poor vanguard was, watching the rest of the battle upside down. Thank the tides that she'd had the gift herself and had brute forced her way out of the biotic cage, but the toll it took on her made itself apparent when she'd collided on the ground - and not on her feet. She breathed raggedly, her face paler and sheen with sweat.

Still, she smiled and laughed, the insanity.

Pain zinged and throbbed more sharply over time the more Liara moved and twisted about, her bruised ribs protesting to it all. Her observations and the analysis with it all was severely delayed, the quaking inside of her growing exponentially upon realizing how much blood was being beaten out of each other.

"All this brutality... Is this how humans greet old friends?"

There was a bloodthirstiness in the air that disabled that line of thinking. She renewed her focus on keeping the humans simply at bay, unable to inflict pain without context behind this all. She tried to see what Gale was doing, how much force the vanguard was exerting, but it wasn't much of a reliable measurement when that human would get so absorbed and lost in the moment of things. She didn't seem to have any issue with pummelling old friends.

"Remind me to never stray away long enough for her to greet me in this manner," Liara inwardly shuddered. She'd decided to utilize her biotics whenever she could to grab hold of throats, to render the humans unconscious by robbing them of oxygen.

By the time she was determined to be the greater threat to ending this foolish battle, there were a scarce amount of the gang members left, with some other man and Gale squaring off in some strange punch-for-punch fight. Finch was down and out for the count, and Liara attempted to implore for peace with the remaining humans coming at her.

None listened, and so they were disabled of their ability to listen as they were put to sleep, next.

The last ones standing were the ones who refused to back down, and Liara watched the barbarity with a conflicted heart on whether or not to forcibly stop this.

"She's not minding her recovery. She's not going to. Someone has to."

"Curt Weisman is a piece of shite, Garrett. It's about time he's rottin' in a cell, where he's always belonged. Why the fuck are you still running with these twats? D'you really think I haven't stayed caught up with what the Tenth Street have been doin' now? Y'were just gonna stand by there and say nothin' while Finch lied about what Curt was really doing in turian space?"

"Y'stood by and left me y'fuckin' cunt," Garrett seethed tiredly as he'd traded blow for blow, blood leaking through clenched teeth when he'd taken the next one to the stomach. "Y'left all'uv us behind. We couldn't join the military, not like you. Tradin' life for death? Y'think I'm that daft?" He landed his next punch square on the jaw.

"Enough," Liara meekly said, though it came out as a pitiful squeak. She cleared her throat, ready to raise her voice. She was stumped when Gale suddenly pulled the man in by the shoulders and hugged, and it seemed he hadn't expected it either. He drilled his fist into her side, rhythmically, though it seemed weak and without resolve.

"I'm still here, aren't I? I'm still alive," Gale murmured.

"Ain't nothin' to measure to. Y'got some kinda bunged up luck, love," Garrett laughed, "I watched you take a fall from the sea stack and still survive. Broken, but not your spirit. I ain't like that, ain't like you. Y'can't keep expecting us to just be like you just 'cause we grew up in the same ditch."

Gale sighed. Her hands slid up to cup the man on the back of his neck, their foreheads touching. Liara blushed from the casual proximity to it all, how they could look at each other deep in the eyes without being perturbed by the intimacy of their lack of space. She wondered if they used to be... Together... In the past.

She didn't know how she felt about that - how she felt about this, too.

Then Gale pulled on his neck to pull him down as she drew her knee up into his groin.

A sharp cry followed by a string of cusses downed the poor man on the floor, and Liara's brow arched with confusion as she'd watched this 'Garrett' man cup his groin. "Are... Genitals a weak spot for humans, then...?" She hesitantly approached Gale, to pull her away from this all so that she'd stop risking her recovery - if it wasn't already shot, by the pallid drained looks of her.

"What would Old Hag Hagrid say?" Gale muttered, crossing her arms when Garrett's groans ceased. He rolled over on his other side, his back facing them. "Did y'even celebrate her birthday, y'tit?"

The man shrunk into a smaller ball. Liara was utterly lost in the conversation, though her curiosity was beyond intrigued to be getting this unfiltered view of the Commander's past. She'd kept quiet and stuck to the sidelines, pinching her thigh so that pain helped her sober up a little more - and keep her standing now that the adrenaline was rushing out of her quivering legs. She leaned against the wall as she watched all these contradictions in the humans' behaviours.

With a soft sigh, Gale knelt by the man's side and pulled on his shoulder so that he was forced to roll on his back. She'd caught his next punch before it landed on her bloodied and bruised face, but it didn't seem like he was imbued with a desire to truly punch, anyways. She shoved his hand back down.

"So you didn't."

Garrett's eyes diverted to Liara, and she shrunk under his scrutiny. He found a different wall to stare at instead, and mumbled something. She couldn't hear. Her mission to remain in the background had already failed when she'd caught them looking over at her more often, and she shyly smiled at Gale with a wave - whom returned it without hesitance, along with a big grin. That grin fell when Garrett's lips moved to mumble something else.

His pained cry echoed in the alley when he'd gotten an elbow to the groin, next.

"Aye, nothin' less than you deserve y'daft tit!" Gale seethed as she bounced up into standing. She'd folded her bruised hands behind her head and began to walk away, propelling Liara to scramble to follow. There were so many questions, but nothing was said. The tension that hung over the vanguard was thick and murky, oozing from her. It dented, somewhat, when she'd twisted to smirk over her shoulder. "Hey, thanks for coming back for me. You're a smokin' hot teacher and a dashin' hero, now."

A beat. T'Soni knew what was coming.

"Dashin' along the floors, you were - like one them reindeers, Dasher. Or maybe you're Blitzen?"

"Please spare me," Liara groaned. "Am I ever going to get to live this down?"

"Ah, maybe in a week or two, after I've had my fill of teasin' ya about it."

"Wonderful."

"Chin up, love." Gale chuckled as she turned and stole a face-searing peck on the cheek. "This was the best date I've ever had. I'll never forget this one for as long as I live."

"I pray that you will," the archaeologist sighed. Her lips quirked up against her will when laughter embraced them, echoing down the shady alleys.

Crazy as it was, to be laughing like this after what they'd just been through, it was... Comforting, in it's own strange way. She'd felt something in her then, perhaps a liking to the adrenaline, but immediately dismissed it as preposterous. She was not an adrenaline junkie, or a thug. She was a professional and respectable - respected - researcher, dedicated to solving mysteries that have eluded the most brilliant minds for decades.

She'd felt something else in her then, about the bruised hand that intertwined with hers on their walk back to the Normandy.

"Doc, how could y'sell me out?"

Gale was absolutely shattered that Liara would be so quick to report to Dr. Chakwas, and Karin wouldn't shove her bloody smiles and quips off.

"You could say your own face already has, Commander. I'd have noticed quite quickly with you walking around like that. Pick your favourite bed."

"Just gimme some medi-gel, I'll pop that on myself. It's gonna be like me puttin' on makeup now, innit?"

"Sit on the bed, Commander."

"Ugh," Gale groaned as she shot eyes of betrayal at the archaeologist, who at least smiled apologetically like she'd meant it.

More grumbles and groans were hailed when the IV machine was brought out to be set up, a damning sign that Shepard had to sit still for a while. Even a glorious brawl like that wasn't worth this torture. She sarcastically offered up her arm, though her own tics went on ignored as Karin stayed professional and quick with her work.

It felt weird as fuck that Liara just stood there, watching this all.

"She did a lot of it then, too. Wonder what she thinks of?"

It wasn't exactly an answer she was rushing to find out. She could only imagine what was thought, from all the glimpses of horror she'd seen etched in the asari's eyes upon realizing that she was fighting her old gang. Fuck, though, Garrett still riled her up worse than all of that, though. Those daft twats, Caelan and Graeme, have changed for the worse. They were all cocksure and steady of their daft xenophobic ways. The gang was doomed and destined to take that path the moment Curt took over as leader.

That thing, that dumb guilt thing that came back and made it enough for her to care, it reprimanded her and forced her to face the truth. Her head fell in her hand with a sigh.

They were doomed and destined to take that path the moment she left as leader.

"I'm sorry, Commander," came the murmur drenched in apology, with hesitant footsteps coming up beside her.

Gale shook her head and lifted wearily, mustering what little energy she had left to smile. "Don't let me whingin' get to ya. None of this has been your fault." She shrugged. "Someone told me it's okay to not be okay. So I guess I'm just tryin' to learn that, yeah? It's me who should be saying me sorries."

"Oh, no, you have nothing to apologize for."

Life returned to the asari's bones, something so simple as what was said between them had this drastic of an effect on her. It was so endearing, even the times she bumbled and scrambled - like now, as she wheeled over a stool. Then her face darkened, for some reason, as her eyes glanced over at Dr. Chakwas when she'd returned with her kit of medi-gel. She remained perpetually silent up until the treatment was over, and Dr. Chakwas went to her terminal to continue charting her notes on the file that would soon be renamed: The Commander's Compendium of Injuries from Bad Decisions.

At least Dr. Chakwas wasn't judgmental about it all, ever - that helped. She'd just do her job and treat, rather than all the stuffy Earth doctors telling Gale what she should and shouldn't do just because she had some fancy schmancy biotic shite crop up.

Liara still wasn't talking. Why wasn't she talking? Was she drafting a thesis of topics to talk about? Maybe she was editing it first, make sure she had all her ducks in a row. Gale put an end to what looked like internal torture and reached with her good hand, somewhat cursing the way her knuckles were so swollen and how charming she must've looked now, with the way her face throbbed with heat - and not in the way anyone would've liked.

"Sorry y'got dragged into that shite, love. I promise the next time we get to stop by the Citadel, we'll spend our whole shore leave in the archives. No fightin'." She smiled, suppressing her wince with the way her jaw began to ache sharply, now that calm returned to her blood. "No drinkin' or loud music. Just nice and quiet the way y'like it, getting lost in your books and learnin', yeah?"

Honesty always found a way to show through with this one, when the asari nodded so enthusiastically. "That sounds lovely. Perhaps I'll also be able to find you books that you can enjoy?"

For a moment, the old grandpa librarian in Gale's mind resurfaced, his willowy fingers and weathered skin shrivelled like a raisin, book in hand and stretched out to her.

{Try this one, next. It's an activity book that will teach you phonics.}

{The fuck is fun-ix?}

{What is phonics?} He corrected, and she rolled her eyes over the daft lesson on manners. When would he learn his lesson that she never will? {It teaches the relationship between the letters of the written language and the sounds of the spoken language.}

"Commander?" Liara broke the shackle of memory. She'd tentatively turned her hand and squeezed the vanguard's. "I don't have to, if you're dreading it."

"We're like that," Shepard blurted.

They stared at each other.

"I'm... I'm sorry?" Liara's head tilted in bewilderment. "Did you mean you'd like that, or...?"

Heat struck across Gale's nose upon the secret in her mind that she'd take to her grave. She chuckled it off and never elaborated as she agreed with the archaeologist, who almost fell off her stool in her rush to inform Dr. Chakwas and request that there be a brain scan done to ensure Shepard hadn't sustained a concussion. She was alright with that. The secret would never get out. She smiled stupidly over her own analogy, though felt a measure of pride. It would be a tough battle to keep this secret, when she'd wanted to share the cleverness of it all with T'Soni.

Maybe one day, when the archaeologist was a little more comfortable with her.

That resolve to keep it a secret didn't last two minutes after all tests were done, and Karin had left for a coffee break. Gale enthusiastically reached to grab and hold T'Soni's hand, squeezing and absorbing the warmth that rapidly exuded from the shy and flustered being. "I thought of somethin' that's up your alley, doc. We're fun-ix. You're the written language, and I'm the spoken language."

"...What?"

Poor Liara was condemned to eternal confusion, and Gale laughed at it all.

Author's Note: Firstly, thank you to the guest review about the note on the tags! All this time something so simple eluded me with how to do that bracket stuff lmao. That aside, I think it's also just fanfiction reception in general, when it comes to reviews. My reception with the same stories but on AO3 is completely the opposite. I have casual conversations there. I used to feel bad about the whole "driving up comment" count until many readers helped just facilitate that atmosphere and said it's alright, where it's essentially like a messaging system just as well as a review system. I still don't mind the lack of reviews here, though. It's a nice happy bonus, but nothing I hang on for like no reviews=no story... Unless someone leaves a review that it's a truly shite story LOL. I will always still wish the person on the other side of the screen all the best and hope that they enjoyed the time they sat down to read the chapter :D

Thank you again for the tip, and I wish everybody a lovely day!