Chapter 12: The Demanding Asari
Bright lights assaulted Shepard. She slipped her sunglasses on with a grumble - there was no escaping the throbbing of this wretched concussion, and night time was the worst time. She could barely see anything inside the sky-car now. She used her omni-tool to illuminate the cabin and glanced over at her companion, blissfully sleeping away.
"I hope she is having a good dream," Shepard thought. "She deserves something good, after all she's going through now."
Quietly, the Commander checked in with Lieutenant Alenko for an update at Benezia's estate. They'd cleaned up and returned to the Normandy, awaiting further orders and to share what evidence Garrus had been able to collect. Dr. Chakwas had been escorted to examine the dead bodies and decided she needed to bring them back for further tests and study.
"That will not be good for Liara to see that," Shepard frowned as she glanced over to ensure the asari was still asleep. "She'll be damaged if she does. I will have to remember not to let her go to the med-bay until Dr. Chakwas is finished her work and disposes the bodies."
Next, she called Tali to find out the situation with the security breach at Dr. T'Soni's apartment. It had come as a surprise that the quarian stayed there along with her escort, Gunnery Chief Williams, to ensure there would be no further issues of someone breaking in to re-install more cameras, or something more dangerous.
"Understood," Shepard whispered. "I will change our route and we will meet you there instead, then we can all return to the Normandy together."
"Tell Dr. T'Soni this place is nice, Commander," Williams said somewhere in the back of the quarian's feed. Then the marine popped into view with a smirk. "Her food sucks though."
"Oh, no." Shepard rushed to the rescue. "Proceed with caution and absolutely do not consume any further perishable goods, Chief Williams. It is poisonous."
At that, the other marine looked alarmed. "Uh, do you want me to toss it in the garbage, then? Should I get checked out by Dr. Chakwas?"
"No. It will be safest to do so when we are adequately prepared with hazmat suits. I too have been forced to consume a portion but suffered no adverse effects. Not yet. I firmly believe I have just been lucky. Further consumption may be fatal, however." Shepard redirected her focus to the quarian who had chuckled quietly. "Tali, were you able to find out who installed those cameras?"
"Yeah," the quarian shrugged. "The building manager."
"The..." Shepard's brow pinched in confusion. "The building manager? To what end? Is he or she working with Saren?"
"He's workin' with something, alright," Williams remarked somewhere in the background, full of chuckles with her next statement. "Knocked on some doors and asked a few tenants living here. Found out the building manager is a Volus. Sleazy bastard, lazy too. Wasn't so lazy going around the building and setting up cameras in a bunch of apartments."
This wasn't making any sense. Shepard massaged her forehead to ward off the coming headache.
"I still don't understand why."
"He's a pervert," Tali and Williams stated in unison, dryly with a groan as if the soldier was missing some incredibly obvious point here.
It took time, took thinking. Shepard wasn't quite sure what to do with this information yet. She nodded tersely.
"Await further orders. I will call you when I decide what to do with him." She altered the sky-car's GPS and updated the coordinates. "We're en route now, ETA: 1 hour and 13 minutes."
"Understood, Commander."
"Shepard, out."
The amber light died in the cabin as she shut off her omni-tool. She looked over and tried to watch her sleeping companion in the darkness, until she decided to activate her optic implant's night vision mode. The stark change to green flared her headache briefly, and she had to take off her sunglasses so that things could be focused better. She watched the subtle rise and fall of the archaeologist's chest as Liara's head slumped against the window. Her neck seemed bent at an awkward angle.
"She's going to get a kink in her neck like that. If her muscles are tight, it's going to get stiff and lock down, causing pain. What is she thinking?"
Disgruntled by the archaeologist's carelessness with her own well-being, Shepard reached and carefully slid her arm along the back of Liara's shoulders, pulling until the head lulled away from the windows and slowly circled in the air until it had tapped the front of the soldier's shoulder. It wouldn't do. Shepard ducked her shoulder down and tried to adjust for the archaeologist to sleep more comfortably against her, watching those peaceful features be disturbed in flickers of movement. Ultimately, Liara stayed asleep even with some more savage shifting.
"She must be extremely exhausted to still be able to sleep through this," Shepard thought worriedly. "Not even disturbed by me talking. And Chief Williams is loud no matter how quiet I have the omni-tool volume set at. That isn't good. Someone could ambush and kidnap her right now and she wouldn't know it."
It must be remedied... But for the future. For now, Shepard was confident she was going to remain awake, and therefore vigilant. She brainstormed what to do with the Volus as she mused on the information she was given. A 'pervert'. A strange term her crew has given the Volus. Then, by definition, they have classified him as a degenerate who's sexual behaviour was abnormal and unacceptable. But how was he pursuing sexual behaviour without pursuing the act itself? Why was he setting up cameras in his tenants' apartments? There was no intel to be gathered in that manner, unless he was trying to learn what that tenant enjoyed, to bolster his chances of achieving a successive coupling.
"But then... Does that mean he's interested in Liara, in that manner? Does he plan to pursue an intimate relationship with her?"
Shepard looked down at the asari she cradled protectively against her.
"He had a camera installed in her bathroom and bedroom."
There was something in here that was waving something furiously. A red flag, perhaps, but she was confused by this boiling sensation gnawing at her guts. Had the poison that coursed through her system heard her? Did perishable goods on Thessia also possess biotics? That was far too absurd to be true, there was simply no way that could have been a possibility. But she also never expected to see a fish biotic itself off her hook and warp it, or hear how butterflies used biotics to fly, or caterpillars use biotics to strip bark to eat. It just didn't seem that whatever was burning in her seemed to be the poison - not from food, anyways. A different kind of poison.
"I don't like it," came the stray thought. "I don't like that the Volus did that to Liara."
A small soft and sleepy moan came from the archaeologist, who had shifted, her features pinched as if uncomfortable. Preposterous.
"My shoulder's got to be more comfortable than that window. What else can I do? You're so demanding, Liara..."
Shepard tried again as she adjusted them. She hooked her ankle underneath Liara's and slowly lifted their legs up to rest on the seat, while the soldier leaned back against the window. She positioned Liara so that she had laid across the seats, her head resting on Shepard's stomach. She tried to relax her muscles so that they were not too rigid of an improvised pillow. Her back ached and protested to the awkward position, but she paid no mind to it, as always.
Her mind wandered again, back to the Volus. It was a strange fixation when she should have been planning their next steps, with the new intel the Chancellor provided of how Matriarch Benezia is an investor in Binary Helix. That was the connection Shepard needed. It was known that Saren was an investor in Binary Helix as well - so pursuing that connection on Noveria was the next logical step.
"Okay, plan done. Now what should I do about the Volus? Should I tell Liara? What if she becomes sentimental and wants to show compassion that he's violated her privacy? Worse yet, what if she is then inclined to consider him as an adequate partner and pursue that intimate relationship he apparently seeks with her?"
That wretched sensation gnawed at her guts again.
"I don't like it." Shepard looked down and idly ran her fingers to explore her curiosity of what an asari's crest feels like. "I don't like that she might." She bit back a scoff. "Cameras? He'll need to work harder than that. I've done research and I've got a head start. Once she finds out what those minerals are, she'll hear me. Then maybe she will consider how we might work, if someone like me even has a chance with her. The plan is already in motion."
There was a more familiar fire stoked in her, one easily labelled thanks to the practice she had been getting with the archaeologist.
It was time to plot revenge on that insolent Volus.
"But first: Liara looks uncomfortable again." Shepard smiled to herself as she adjusted the rock sleeping on her. "You're so demanding..."
"Liara, it's time to wake up."
A gentle whisper, a gentle shake. She stirred with a groan. She was so comfortable, tucked in somewhere, a comforting weight on her torso.
"Am I in bed?"
Her eyes fluttered open. Darkness surrounded her, apart from some lights in her peripheral vision. She stared at a ceiling, but it was not a familiar one to her. A face came to the top of her view and startled her. She shot up, where sharp pain collided with her forehead and she yelped. She was forced to twist and her hands were warded away, bringing attention to a weight that suddenly flopped on her lap. She looked down first, puzzled.
"Is that... Shepard's tactical vest?"
She looked up and was met with annoyed eyes, flickering about as a thumb swiped across her forehead.
"Oh Goddess, I'm so sorry. Did I crash into you, Shepard?"
"Hit my chin, no worries. Part of my jawbone is reinforced with titanium. Which is why I'm worried about you. What were you thinking?" Shepard softly chastised, her brow pinched endearingly. "Dr. Chakwas will need to check that when we return to the Normandy. Does it hurt to think? Do lights or sounds bother you?"
"No, why?"
"Just trying to figure out if you're concussed." Shepard tenderly massaged circles on the forehead, and it sent a nice little shudder down the archaeologist's spine. "You're going to bruise for sure. Can't tell if you already are, in this lighting."
"This lighting? There are no lights in here."
There were too many things she was trying to figure out at once - namely, where was she when she was sleeping? By all this evidence, it seemed as though she had laid down and slept on the soldier's lap. The possibility alone had made her stomach dance with glitterwings, and she kicked herself for being so soundly asleep at all. It made her heart melt, even while being chastised constantly as she was now. Her tongue ached as she bit it to stop herself from smiling. She was caught anyways.
"This isn't funny, Dr. T'Soni."
"Not funny at all, no. It hurts quite a bit, in fact."
"Then stop smiling. Why are you smiling? You could've been - could be - seriously injured like that. You need to be more careful, next time."
How soon could this 'next time' be? And on that note, just how well could Shepard actually see in the darkness? It seemed as though nothing would escape her notice here.
"I'm sorry, I will be," Liara tried to say earnestly.
All she really wanted to do was get this incoherent screaming out of her system.
"Alright then. C'mon, we're going to go rendezvous with Chief Williams and Tali in your apartment."
"My apartment?" Liara glanced out the window to affirm it. "I thought we were going to the Normandy first?"
"Plans changed after I called them for an update. We're here for... To take care of some business. Which I will. All you have to worry about is to gather the things you'll want to take with you, and to dispose of your perishable goods in a safe manner. Chief Williams has poisoned herself. Those goods cannot be trusted anymore."
"Poisoned?" Liara thought with great amusement.
She didn't trust her voice not to jitter with laughter, so she nodded and followed the soldier out of the sky-car. She handed the tactical vest back and followed Shepard's lead to her own apartment. The elevator ride up was somewhat long, when anxiety snaked into her thoughts over the predicament rushing towards her. She was about to meet two of her crew mates. What were they going to be like? Would this 'Chief Williams' be admonishing her over this apparent hazardous food she'd consumed?
"On that note, I cannot be held responsible if they are helping themselves to my things," she mused with a slight huff.
Her concerns had no time to embed themselves deeper into her thoughts as the elevator dinged, and Shepard took with that usual baffling speed. She engaged her omni-tool as she had, typing something as she stood in front of the door. Liara reached for the keypad, but her wrist was gently warded downwards as Shepard shook her head. Soon, the door slid of its own accord, but no one was there to greet them. Shepard unlaced her boots and toed them off as she went inside.
"Do I not have a password anymore? How did this door open without input?"
Perhaps most ironically of all, upon coming to Thessia, was that Liara had been a stranger to her own home. A stranger, she was, as she followed the soldier down the hallway. It was dark all around except for the kitchen, where she poked her head in and saw some cans on the counter. The living room flickered with lights, and her heart sank to her stomach with dread when she heard familiar voices.
"Oh, no... Why would they torture themselves like this?"
Shepard's pace picked up upon hearing those same voices, while Liara dreadfully lingered behind. There was only so much hallway to stall though. She came to and observed an audacious quarian and human pair on her couch, watching an episode of Blue Bloods. She prayed with all her might that Shepard would stay focused on her duties, for once.
"Oh, this episode is my favourite," the soldier remarked. Her stoic tone threatened to crack. Her head turned one too many times towards the screen rather than her crew mates.
"Goddess, please."
"Jesus," the other human blew out with a breathy laughter. Her dark eyes landed and combed Liara as she smiled. "You must be Dr. T'Soni." She dismissively waved to the screen. "My condolences."
"Thank the Goddess someone else understands. Now I don't feel as guilty."
"Commander, this is interesting," the quarian piped up as she leaned eagerly on the couch. "So does this mean that the Commissioner is going to have to take her badge? But she did the right thing."
"Well, yeah, but the public isn't going to see it that way. She has to be made an example of so that there won't be a riot because the media-"
Liara gaped in disbelief, and seemed she wasn't the only one, judging by the other human's incredulous expression. The quarian got lost in the conversation with the soldier, and Liara was hurting for answers - or at least a plan - of whatever they were supposed to do here, before returning to the Normandy. This presented an opportunity to escape, however. She slithered upstairs to her bedroom to avoid being dragged into the awful banality of politics. Footsteps creeped up after her. She expected it to be Shepard and turned with that practised quick-draw smile, her stomach rocking with a new wave of nervousness when instead it was the other human.
"I'm Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams," the human introduced herself. "Figured I'd give you the low down of what's been happening here," she thumbed over the railing at the other two, "While they put themselves to sleep." Her mouth whisked in a soft smile as she looked over. "Well, it's nice to see this too. I think Tali's just pretending to go along with it just so that we can hear something else come out of the Commander's mouth instead of orders. We were running a bet to figure out if that shitty show was because of you or because of the Commander." She shrugged. "Looks like I owe Tali 100 credits."
Liara didn't quite know what to say, and it showed with her nervous smile.
"Due to the nature of needing to hide her being a military officer, the Commander has been... Exploring a different side of her, here," Liara offered timidly.
"Yeah," Ashley blew out with a soft laugh. "Good to know there's a human under that uniform. Anyways, so Tali did her thing. She's disabled all cameras, found a bug under your bed too." The marine smiled wickedly. "Hope you didn't give the Volus too much to work with, Dr. T'Soni. Don't you worry, though, he'll get what's comin' to him."
"The Volus? And work with what?"
Ashley chuckled it away rather than explaining. She turned to head back down into the living room and flicked the light switch on, interrupting the horrifyingly-enthusiastic conversation as she leaned over to whisper in the Commander's ear. Shepard suddenly shot up from the couch and her head turned at a dizzying speed to meet Liara's eyes. A hand twitched upwards to the forehead before it was forced back down.
"Why is she hiding her pain? Is it because Tali and Ashley are here?"
"Dr. T'Soni, there is ample evidence to implicate that this building's manager is the culprit behind planting the bugs here - and you are not the only victim," Shepard explained sternly. "Chief Williams and Tali have visited multiple tenants and discovered that the Volus has slowly been setting these cameras up since the start of his career 2 years ago. I will find him and apprehend him right now, but before I turn him into the police, I want to take him here so that he can confess and apologize to you in person. Are you ready to face him?"
Liara's brain spun with this overload of information, especially when the vestiges of sleep still clung to her. She absentmindedly nodded. Shepard marched off with a purpose and gone in the blink of an eye. Ashley whispered something to Tali, and the two laughed.
Now, more than ever, Liara was doubly awkward to have been left alone with the two. Things were being put away, and the quarian came upstairs to approach Liara.
"I'm Tali'Zorah nar Rayya, but you can just call me Tali. It's good to finally meet you, Dr. T'Soni."
"Liara, please," she shyly replied. "Erm, thank you for taking the time to ensure my apartment is safe. I... Don't have much I can offer you right now as compensation, though."
"Don't worry about that, happy to help. We're a team now." Tali turned and leaned on the railing as she gestured to a particular pile stuffed in the corner. "Who engineered that, by the way?"
"Shep-" Liara quickly cleared her throat. "The Commander. She needed a different heat source other than my stove."
"I knew it." Tali rose her voice to be carried over the railing. "I was right about the torch too, Ashley. You owe me another 100 credits."
"Just how many bets do they have going on the Commander right now? Do I want to know?"
"God dammit," the marine cussed. "Won't have nothing set aside for shore leave, at this rate..."
Liara didn't quite know what to do in this situation, and smiled timidly when it seemed as though as her crew mates were expecting something from her, from the way their heads turned to her often enough. It was clear they had already helped themselves in the kitchen - though she supposed she could understand if they had been here all day. She looked around her bedroom to brainstorm what else she could take with her to the Normandy.
"Perhaps some clothes. I do not know what the laundry situation will be like - I will have to remember to ask the Commander when I get the chance."
The Commander. Frankly, it sucked that that was how she was going to have to refer to Shepard from now one. They took steps forward here, and now Liara felt as though they were going to take leaps back. The Commander will be back in her comfort zone, in her role, where there was no room nor cause to 'play civilian' as she would regard it, as she had gotten to explore and play with here.
"Oh, she's back already," Tali announced as she returned to the living room.
The door hissed open, and Liara came to the railing to see what the commotion was as there was significant scuffling. She picked up Shepard's voice, though the mutter was too low to hear - the menacing tone was unmistakable. The archaeologist braced herself for what she may need to curb and deescalate now. Horror struck her upon witnessing the way Shepard roughly dragged the building manager by his elbow, where she nearly threw him as she pushed him to sit on the couch.
"Stay there and don't move a muscle," Shepard ordered. She disappeared again.
Liara wandered down to the living room, sharing looks of confusion with her other crew mates. Ashley chuckled when the Commander returned with a can in her hand.
The 'poisonous' perishable good.
"You will confess to Dr. T'Soni what you did here, or I will rip off your filter and shove the hazardous contents of this can down your throat. It will obliterate your digestive tract like drinking acid."
"It's not that bad," Liara wanted to defend.
She wasn't quite sure if she was amused or disgruntled that her food was getting this much punishment, though her crew mates seemed to be greatly entertained - and shocked - by witnessing this side of the Commander.
"Commander, it's fine," the archaeologist started to say. "We should just turn him in and allow the asari authority to-"
"It's not fine," Shepard interjected. She stepped closer and grabbed the volus' helmet. "Apologize to Dr. T'Soni and confess what you've done to the tenants of this building, or else. I'm a Spectre. I have ways to deal with your body in which no one will ever be able to identify you, if they even ever find you."
Liara crossed her arms and frowned. "That's going too-"
"You're insane! You have no proof it was me, that terminal was... Was planted in my office!" The building manager cried out, but panicked when fingers latched under the chin of his helmet. "Wait, wait!"
Within seconds, and several sucks of breath as was necessary for the Volus species, a confession tumbled out - and it turned out that Tali was recording it. Was it a tactic to get what they needed in order to implicate whomever was setting up those cameras? It seemed wrong to get the confession this way though. She was left in the dust as she tried to process the rapid change of events, where Tali and Chief Williams apprehended the building manager and ordered to drop him off at the station with the clip of his confession. The tool of torture to elicit such words - the poisonous perishable good - was set aside on a table as Shepard approached the archaeologist with a gentle hand on the shoulder.
"Liara, are you alright? You're not looking well. Do you need to sit down?"
"I... Do not know how to process this." Liara's forehead creased with conflict as she looked at the soldier, inwardly debating whether to challenge if the threatening interrogation was necessary.
"There's been too much happening, lately. I'm having trouble keeping up. Especially with her."
"Well, what's important is that he's going to be punished accordingly for what he did. The tenants in this building are safe again. You're safe again. That's all that matters. C'mon." Shepard headed up the stairs. "Let's pack your things and head back to the Normandy."
"If it's safe here now, can't we stay another night?"
Shepard glanced over her shoulder, a look of contemplation. She shrugged. "I see no issues with it. We will not be departing until tomorrow evening anyways. I can debrief with the team from the estate in the morning."
"Good," Liara melted with relief.
"...Good."
It seemed as though the soldier was at a loss of where to go now. She turned on the stairs and stayed, though glanced over her shoulder at the bedroom. She went up there momentarily as she relinquished her tactical vest to rest on the dresser. But then she lingered there. Liara observed the soldier's back, confused, waiting with bated breath for this stealthy tension that was growing between them, for some reason. She didn't know why, didn't know where it came from.
Shepard shifted in the silence, stared back at her. There seemed to be something screamed between them, but what it was, the archaeologist couldn't tell.
"Let's shower together, Liara."
She blushed up a storm. "Wh-what?"
Maybe she misheard.
"Let's shower together, Liara," Shepard repeated stoically. "It'll be good practice for when you board the Normandy. Remember what I said?"
"Y-yes, but... But..."
How could she explain this in a way that someone - who could only fathom rational explanations - would be able to understand, right now?
"You can study my cybernetics," the soldier offered. "You can study my scars too, if you want. They should prove a useful distraction."
There were going to be so many other distractions in that moment.
"I can't," Liara blurted.
She had half a mind to grab her chest, because it felt like she needed to contain her heart before it hammered out of her ribs.
Shepard frowned. "You know you are going to have to eventually though, right?"
"I... Know, but... But I can't. Not now. Not yet. Please?"
"Do you need to take it a step slower?"
"Several," Liara wanted to scream. All she could manage was a nod.
"What if I undress and you just get used to that, then? You could watch me shower?"
"That's worse!"
Liara fiercely shook her head.
The soldier cupped her chin thoughtfully. "I don't know what else we could try, then."
"Can we just do this another time, after we board the Normandy?"
Shepard conceded after a tense minute and shrugged. "Alright. I should think of something better by then."
"Thank the Goddess..."
"So what do you want to do on your last night here, then?" Shepard asked.
"Not have a heart attack is my first priority, at this rate."
Liara took a deep breath to compose herself. She looked out towards the balcony, and a reminiscent smile tugged at her mouth. It wasn't too long ago at all when they had shared wine together out there. In just a few days, so much was packed into this trip. She gestured to the balcony as she looked at the soldier.
"How about a bottle of wine, or two?"
She laughed when nothing else needed to be said, as Shepard had hopped over the railing and practically rushed to the kitchen on a mission.
It was in this lighting that struck Shepard with a conflicting analogy: that the moonlight that danced on the asari made it seem as though she was captured in art. She wanted to record this on her omni-tool, but wasn't sure how to ask - wasn't sure if she had the right to ask after how she treated Liara to taking a picture of her, a few days ago.
They were done a bottle and nearly halfway the next, where Shepard began to feel the small hints of tipsiness. Liara seemed rather inebriated, laughing so much more, so much harder, smiling so much more freely.
It made her so much more strange - strangely captivating - than she already was.
Shepard made a mental note to find the article she was reading up on in the sky-car, before being forced to hide the evidence when Liara leaned over. It had made the soldier feel even more foolish than she was for looking it up to begin with: how to flirt. The article gave vague ideas that were barely even ideas, forcing her to come up with things on her own regardless. Even now, she was at an utter loss on how to flirt with someone of Dr. T'Soni's intelligence and emotional aptitude.
"Someone like me doesn't have a chance. It would be like dating a geth, for her."
But it didn't stop Shepard from wanting to try, to learn, to remember what it meant to feel all these things again. She wanted to remember what it was like to be enamoured. She wanted to feel the adoration she had for Shifty and the other barn animals, if she even had the capacity to love anymore. A couple psychologists said she couldn't, and she just accepted it at the time - it wasn't necessary in her line of work, after all. But now she wished she would have worked on it, the way she was working on it now. It was all Liara's fault that she had gotten this way.
A finger poked her cheek.
"You look so... I don't know," Liara murmured, drilling the tip of her finger in just a bit. "Are you going to try to sleep tonight?"
"That's come out of nowhere."
Shepard glanced over as she leaned on the railing, swirling her wine in her glass with a defeated shrug.
"Likely not."
The archaeologist frowned. "Why? You need to. You look ready to."
"I can't afford to."
She wouldn't explain why she couldn't afford to, though. She didn't have the courage to look over and see how much more that frown deepened. She tensed a little when a slack body bumped into hers, where Liara soon took advantage of it and pressed her shoulder in a little harder. The archaeologist bent her neck and rested the side of her head against Shepard's.
"You need to learn how to, the way I need to learn how to make do without privacy," Liara murmured. "If I try to shower with you tonight, will you try to sleep tonight?"
"Absolutely not."
A despondent sigh. "I thought as much."
Shepard ran her thumb back and forth on the rim of her glass, then sipped. She gradually relaxed as she got used to this weight on her. She gradually grew to like it. And she eventually shrugged.
"Sorry, Liara. I know you're just trying to help, but... I can't sleep. Not without medication. I didn't pack it with me, so it's still on the Normandy."
"Let's go get it, then."
"We might as well stay there if we do, and I'd rather you enjoy your last night here. I don't know for sure when we'll ever return. This mission could take years, or it could take months. Either way, it's going to be a while."
Shepard turned her head to try to look, and firmly fixed her head back forward when her lips accidentally touched warm skin. A renewed sense of awkwardness took her. The inebriated asari didn't seem to notice, who was content with humming along to something instead. The warmth shared between their bodies staved off the crisp chill in the air. Shepard enjoyed nights like these, found comfort in the familiarity of watching the puffs of her breaths fade away. She found interest in watching heavier puffs float beside hers too.
"This is yet another happy memory she is helping me create," Shepard reflected contentedly.
Liara suddenly sparked up a conversation, something about Protheans at first, then it somehow turned into explaining the physiology of Thessia's biotic equivalent of jellyfish and whales. It was educational, to be sure, and while the topic was ordinarily something of great interest to the soldier, she found herself instead absorbed by the amount of life those blue eyes held, despite addled and clouded by alcohol. She couldn't stop from staring, zoning out as if she was in a mindless trance.
Eventually, Liara seemed to be taking glances quite often in the midst of her one-sided conversation. Her sentences dragged on longer as her slurred words slowed. She came to a complete halt and stared back. Shepard's wine glass was plucked from her fingers and everything was set aside on the balcony floor, where fingers tentatively wrapped around the soldier's wrist and pulled them back into the apartment. She didn't mind. She stiffened when arms wound around her shoulders, though, and the heavier puffs of breaths she had watched not too long ago now sunk into her neck, beneath her ear.
"L-Liara?"
"You look so tired," Liara mumbled sleepily. "I'm worried about you, Luce."
Shepard froze.
"What did she just say?"
She couldn't confront it, didn't have the heart to, didn't have enough of one left for it to ache if she had found out this particular truth. Whatever the case was, it seemed the archaeologist had learned, somehow. How, it would be found out tomorrow. Tonight was to be a good night, a happy night, the last of which they may see in a long while. Shepard didn't know where to put her hands when the arms around her tightened, and she faintly felt soft moisture ghost over her neck. She closed her eyes as she thrust herself in her mental mantras to try to return to some semblance of calm, hearing robotic words resound off the walls.
"I'm fine. Don't worry."
"You say that, but it makes me worry even more," Liara sighed. "What if you slept beside me? Would that help you fall asleep?"
"She's persistent, I'll give her that. Or too drunk to remember what I said. She's quite the lightweight." Shepard reluctantly placed her hands on the archaeologist's hips. "I would still need my medication. Falling asleep isn't the issue for me. Staying asleep - and having a restful sleep - is."
"Bad dreams?"
Shepard smiled with a wry laugh. "That's putting it mildly, but yes. Something like that."
Liara fell silent. Her breathing became noisier, her arms slacker, her body heavier. The soldier slowly wrapped her arms around the waist to be prepared to take on the weight of the strange asari, falling asleep. As soon as a noiseless snore vibrated against Shepard's throat, she moved seamlessly as she stepped to the side and bent down to scoop up Liara's legs, cradling and carrying her up to her bedroom. The demanding asari was laid to rest, blankets tugged about until they were freed from beneath the body and ready to slide over it instead. Shepard gingerly took off Liara's shoes and socks, leaving the rest on out of respect - but more so uncertainty. The soldier sat by the edge of the bed as she watched the peaceful features slacken more and more, then went off to turn the lights off and return to the balcony to finish what was left of their wine.
"Here's to us lone wolves," Shepard toasted to no one in particular. She looked over her shoulder when she finished her glass, rattled by the thought she was having often, recently.
"I don't want to be one anymore - not that I have much of a choice with her around. I have a feeling she's not going to ever leave me alone."
She sighed as she turned her gaze to the night sky, a smile growing as she reached for the stars.
"You're so demanding, Liara..."