Chapter 32: Storm the Shelter
Gasps exploded to life. Liara shot up into sitting, her hand coming up to clasp her throat. It felt tender in some spots, most notably over her pulse, though her time to ponder was cut short when there was a human rising from her chair, an incredulous look on her face. Dr. Chakwas. She strode over as if caught in between her disbelief and her instincts as a doctor.
If only her instincts with the wretched pressure cuff could wait a touch longer.
"Dr. T'Soni, how are you feeling?" Chakwas breathed, her voice coming out of faded existence.
There were so many things to say. Too many. She rubbed at her throat, her brightening eyes pricked with tears, but a smile blooming wide on her face. "I found her, Dr. Chakwas. I found my mother."
Thankfully, the cuff was stalled, but it didn't seem to be for a good reason. The good doctor seemed alarmed. Her tactics changed and she immediately went to pull over her scanning machine, the large crane swinging above Liara's plinth. She looked up, until a waggling finger tapped her and pointed over to the wall opposite to her. The last time she submitted herself for brain scans, it was to give Chakwas something to compare with the scans she had taken of Kaleema and Neekoo.
Goddess, please let the scan be as normal as the first.
"Stay still and quiet," Dr. Chakwas ordered as she walked over to her terminal, initiating the scans.
There was notable tension flooding out of the doctor's body upon leaning over to inspect the images relayed to her terminal. She returned to Liara's side with a relaxed smile, swinging the crane away before she sat in a chair - a wobbly one - and turned on a monitor by the bedside. A vitals monitor.
"Why was it turned off?"
Liara glanced down as other questions began to rush in. She was back in a gown, and she could feel all manners of things sticking to her body now. There were more lines attached to her than just IV - the more discomforting one serving a fierce blush with how she'd felt it between her legs. It brooked the most terrifying question, and she hesitantly looked over at the patient doctor that seemed to be observing her. Intently.
"She suspects what Lucy catastrophized of - that I've been indoctrinated indirectly."
Had she? It was yet another nightmarish question to wonder, but she pushed it out her mind with a hopeful prayer for the best. She wasn't being tormented by anything that she'd experienced in her meld with mother. She subtly cleared her throat, stealing a quick glance around an empty infirmary.
"H-how... How long was I out?"
"Roughly 32 hours." Dr. Chakwas fetched something that was inside the monitor's basket - an envelope. "Here. After I ask you some questions and run tests, I will give as much privacy as I can, for as long as I am authorized to." She gently bobbed her head toward a corner. "I must observe you over a security feed, however."
Lips pressed in a thin frown as Liara played with the corner of the envelope. She didn't need to inspect it thoroughly to recognize the writing - and her stomach plummeted dreadfully upon wondering why she would receive a letter from Lucy. The chair, the chair Chakwas was in now, it was...
It was empty prior to her.
Words refused to come, a lump lodging in her throat instead. Her eyes burned with tears again. A steady hand slipped over hers and squeezed reassuringly.
"The Commander is alive."
"Thank the Goddess," Liara blurted, nearly a wheeze. But upon looking over at Dr. Chakwas, her stomach still churned with catastrophic thoughts upon the melancholy thinly veiled by such a forced smile. The Commander was alive, but what was not divulged were the semantics of what status being alive entailed, aboard this ship.
"My vitals monitor was turned off. My own prognosis appeared to be grim enough to Dr. Chakwas, it seemed."
With the desire to open the envelope - and demystify the bumpy object stuck in the corner of it - she complied with all questions and tests, trying to soothe her impatience with just how many Dr. Chakwas wanted to do to square every little detail away. Liara's inner elbows were tender, and upon steeling herself to steal a glance, she'd seen how bruised they were. She had almost teased if there was any blood left to take, but there was a kind of atmosphere brooding and breeding in this infirmary that swiftly cut down any sparks of hope or levity. She had even done cognitive testing, relieved to hear that everything was functioning normally - as far as Dr. Chakwas knew and saw.
There was a strong desire to asked to be knocked out when the removal of all the lines came. Liara flushed fiercely and turned her head away when she'd laid down and had been instructed to relax. An impossible task. There were so many things racing in her mind, and her heart was hammering away upon all the omens she'd come up with in order to explain away the letter. It was downright uncomfortable to feel the wretched line slither out of her, though she couldn't remember a time in her life where she'd felt the most relief as soon as the catheter was out of her system.
"At least Dr. Chakwas is professional and quick about it. I can only imagine all the comments Lucy would say and obliviously make it all worse."
"I'll give you some privacy now," Chakwas announced, taking a datapad with her as she jerked her head to the door. "I can hear you on the security feed, so if you need anything then just call for me."
Footsteps thudded sharply in the hollow med-bay, and Liara hadn't even waited to be completely alone before she'd torn the envelope open. She needed to make sure that the object burrowed inside were not dog tags - a military custom that she'd painfully observed with Helen, once, when the usual-loudmouthed soldier had instead silently reminisced somebody from the past.
A rope first spilled onto her palm and she froze.
"The Commander is alive," she had to remind herself. She kept telling herself it over and over again, and instead became curious that - if it were dog tags - perhaps Shepard had finally stepped away from this life. "Don't their dog tags usually have a chain instead of rope?"
Liara forced herself to pull on the rope, and instead a tiny little vial came out swinging on the other end. A little jar with a stopper. Her heart swelled before it constricted painfully, a sorrowful smile tugging on the corner of her lips as she took a closer look to see what 'grainy material' the Commander filled the vial with. It didn't seem to be sand, as planned to have taken from Skymeadow beach in Thessia, but rather dirt.
{I remember feeling how much you missed your home, back when we... Melded. So. I know it's not the same as being home, but I thought you could at least carry a little piece with you.}
There was a different kind of burning in Liara's mind, now, in her heart and her legs. She was confounded by the chaos of emotions that dwelled within, torn apart as they pulled her in all manners of directions. There was something compelling in this earnest sentiment, but she was wary and weary because of it too. It was just another example of the past, something for her to now longingly reminisce about - the innocent days where foolish naivete only saw the attentive kindness and ignored the ease of ruthlessness that could happen just a minute later.
Liara couldn't bring herself to take the letter out the envelope. She warred just with donning the necklace, a sigh tumbling out of her as she had undone the clasp, fidgeting with it. She thumbed at the tiny vial before she plucked it in between her fingers, lifting it up to the light as she rotated the jar in it, inspecting every single grain of this mysterious grainy material.
"It's definitely dirt. Has my entire apartment been levelled to the ground just so that she could excavate beneath it to the literal soil my home was on? I wouldn't put that past her."
But she doubted - or rather, she hoped - that Shepard's love for explosives hadn't quite gone that far. The only other logical conclusion remained.
"This is Mindoir's dirt. We had yet to lift off, prior to my meld with mother."
A little piece of Mindoir. A piece of somebody else's home, a home that had been the catalyst to it all in Lucy's life.
Doors hissed open, and a headache shot down Liara's skull when she'd looked so hastily. She grimaced a little, but the curious hope that lifted her heart was the same that damned it when she didn't see who she had maybe kind of possibly wanted to see. Dr. Chakwas entered the infirmary, marking the end of what little privacy Liara could have, for what little time she was permitted, it seemed.
Wasn't it odd that the doctor was left to fend for herself, though? There were no guards that Liara had seen, before the doors hissed shut. The doctor quietly went back to her terminal and set her datapad down, before turning and crossed her arms. She seemed to be conflicted with something.
"Had she observed something that could mean that I'm..."
Liara couldn't finish the thought. It was too terrifying, and every part of her was screaming in denial - but it only made her question and distrust herself even more. Of course she would be in denial. From what Shepard had learned and told her of indoctrination, the brainwashing didn't sound like it could be warded away with awareness alone. Benezia knew. She still succumbed.
Silence was broken when the doctor retrieved something from one of the cabinets, then approached to set it on the plinth. Liara's clothes. Chakwas seemed reluctant.
"I am discharging you," Dr. Chakwas stated, "Though I need... No, that's not right," she chuckled halfheartedly, shaking her head. "Everybody needs you right now. I am aware there is tension between you and the Commander, but perhaps you may be the only person left that might be able to get through to her. It's worth a try, at the very least."
"Get through to her?" Liara parroted, confused, drawing her clothes upon her lap. "Just what exactly have I missed?"
That melancholic smile returned. The doctor answered by setting her datapad down on Liara's lap, then left to give privacy to change. The datapad was lit up in seconds, access already granted from it being left unlocked on a report filed by Commander Shepard. Liara's brow knitted in confusion upon reading the location detailed - an STG base located on Virmire. Wasn't the Special Tasks Group the salarian espionage organization?
What she read - what she hadn't even finished reading - didn't take her long to be racing on her suit as she embarked on her own mission. She clasped the rope around her neck, safely tucked under her suit, and set off from the infirmary, handing the datapad back to Dr. Chakwas when they'd crossed at the doors. She was accompanied - perhaps still in accordance with orders - up until she'd reached the doors to the Commander's quarters. A hand hooked on her shoulder and stopped her briefly, and she turned to find a stern look on Dr. Chakwas' face.
"We need her back on Saren's tail. No more missions for the Alliance, or flying out to stop raids. She's utilizing them as a distraction and we may very well have little time left to stop the Reapers. I urge you set aside your differences and do whatever it takes to get her focused."
"What about grieving?"
Liara clamped her mouth shut. She didn't agree with Dr. Chakwas, but her mission took the utmost priority than to stand here and argue with such a callous view, no matter how pragmatic or necessary. It would do injustice to the very thing Liara's been trying to teach Lucy all this time. What point was there, saving humanity at the cost of it?
So she nodded. She braced herself for what level of hell she would enter this time, needing to nearly force herself just to press the button to open the door. She heard a sharp inhale behind her when they were met with the simple sight of Shepard asleep on her bed. A gentle hand rested between Liara's shoulder blades and gave a slight nudge. She had to mentally coach herself to take a step, then another, quietly stalking into the room. Her entire body seized up with tension upon hearing the doors hiss shut.
She was alone.
"She's alone too," Liara's brow knitted together, her chaotic emotions more conflicted than ever before. "The lone wolf has lost her pack again."
Compassion and empathy cried out, reached out, through the bars of a cage she'd desperately corralled them in in an effort to protect herself, to save herself from more pain.
But there were datapads everywhere. There was a datapad on a night stand, the display alight with a dossier of a salarian. Liara approached as quietly as she could as she set her unopened letter aside, picking up the PDA and reading the dossier in solidarity - just like back then, with Kate Bowman. Her heart sank and her bottom lip was painfully recruited for teeth to sink into.
The next datapad had laid behind Shepard, abandoned by her hips. The soldier was wearing the loose sweater once given so that her wounds wouldn't be constricted. Liara wavered and sucked in a sharp breath as the display lit up when she'd picked up the datapad. There was a knife slowly sinking into her, twisting, and the world soon became blurry as she read the name on this dossier, confirming the casualties she'd read in the Virmire report.
Lieutenant Kaidan Alenko.
Another datapad, somewhat pinched just under the side of the thigh.
Urdnot Wrex.
"All this death..." Liara's hands shook with the datapads collected. She couldn't bring herself to read these dossiers, the people that were in front of her, last her eyes were opened. They dutifully waited in their corners, and now...
There was a final datapad, clutched tightly in Shepard's organic hand. Liara came around the bed, and it was only then that she'd realized that the soldier was lying on her side without her synthetic arm. She took a risk as she sat tentatively on the edge of the mattress, reaching to inch the datapad out ever so incrementally slow. She swore her heart had outright stopped when the display lit up from all the movement, the final dossier that Shepard had been studying in the only way she had left to honour sacrifice.
Dr. Liara T'Soni.
"Oh, Lucy..."
So this was what the letter must have been about... Or was it written prior to Liara's 'death'?
Something muffled had her startled and jump a little in her seat when the soldier shifted a little in her position. Liara's gaze snapped up to Shepard's mouth for she'd recognized the voice, but Lucy was still asleep. The source of sounds seemed pinned underneath the hip, and Liara carefully wormed her fingers beneath to wiggle out a small device. She blinked furiously when her tears slammed back with renewed vigour upon catching more words, released from it's buried grave and filling the room with more clarity.
"-so troubled when you saw me get shot. Never again, you hear me? I don't want to understand ever again, Liara."
Silence, briefly.
"Promise me," Lucy pleaded frailly on the recording. "Never again."
"Never again," Liara promised.
A notable click, the playback finished. It wasn't much longer before it replayed on it's loop.
"Dr. T'Soni. How are you feeling? Do you need anything?"
"I'm fine." Liara's lie was permanently engraved in memory, now. "Don't need anything. Piano, please?"
Liara pressed the button to stop the playback. She set the device on the night stand, taking this moment to study Lucy's sleeping face as she tried to reign her composure in. How long had the Commander been listening to that recording? How long has Shepard taken to grieve, to feel? Was she feeling, or was she trying to feel, numbed by all this death around her?
There were no tear streaks. Liara wondered if Shepard would ever cry again, the way she had when she broke down in her own conflict, wondering if her parents would have loathed her for saving a batarian.
Decisions were few and far in between as she warred with what to do, what to say. She tried to stall the sorrow that lurked at the edges, stalking and watching for the right moment to sink it's fangs in. She tried to get a better look at the side that once harboured the synthetic arm, but all she had to work with was the flimsy flat sleeve of a loose hoodie.
Tentatively, Liara reached, bracing herself with her biotics as the back of her fingers ghosted along Lucy's cheekbone. She collected strands of dishevelled hair and tucked it behind the ear. The human's eyebrows met together in conflict, seeming as though she was going to stir, but she ultimately stayed asleep. There was a brief moment a hand shot up and clasped Liara's wrist, and she tensed, watching for those eyes to snap open. They never did. The hand on her wrist slipped away, some incoherent mumble humming deep in Shepard's throat.
"Well, she's not choking me, so..."
Courage gained traction as she studied and mapped the peaceful features, otherwise stern and hardened when awake. Her gaze panned up to a set of eyeglasses forgotten above Lucy's head. She must have finally remembered to shut her implants off, the way she was supposed to daily.
"And she gives me a hard time for not taking better care of myself?" Liara softly clicked her tongue off the roof of her mouth, her lips twitching in a melancholic smile.
Exploration paused when the soldier shifted a little, slumping onto her back. Liara steeled herself as she ventured once more, grabbing at the flimsy sleeve all the way up to the shoulder. There was no arm here, nor anywhere else in the room as far as she could see. She frowned as each and every intricate little observation was committed to memory before she'd commit to waking Shepard, and whatever that was about to bring.
One last stand, where Liara's thumb traced along the human's eyebrows, etching to her mind every detail of the power of sleep - even if dreamless. A lazy hand came up to her wrist again, but this time with a more purposeful hold. Her gaze snapped up to eyes that were lacking the vibrant green lines, the implants indeed turned off. Lucy stared, an emotionless expression engraved. She didn't seem shocked, didn't seem angry. Instead, she released her hold and grunted her way up into sitting, sliding over on the opposite edge of the bed. A weary sigh tumbled out of her as she hunched over, massaging her forehead.
"Shepard?" Liara whispered hesitantly.
No response. The soldier twisted and blindly felt about until she'd gotten her glasses, sliding them on. She was all business as she looked about and rose from the bed, walking around to collect the datapads and the device. They were set at the table where her terminal was and she opened a cabinet, taking out a bottle of wine, having to make twice the amount of trips with only one arm to work with, it seemed.
Only one glass was set on her table and she fell in her chair ungracefully, her movements lacking the precision and thought she always carried herself with. She bit the stopper off the wine and spat it out on the floor, pouring into her glass before she'd figured to retrieve a datapad.
Liara's heart sank as she observed that it was her dossier, halfway scrolled down.
Shepard nursed the glass religiously, taking an inordinate amount of time to continue to scroll and read. She massaged her forehead often. Her joints popped with the slightest movement, her hand hooked on her nape as her thumb paced back and forth.
Quietly, the archaeologist rose and came over, setting her hands on the rigid shoulders. Shepard inhaled sharply. She leaned over and propped her forehead against a fist, stacked on the table.
"VI, add to my agenda for tomorrow's 0800 time slot to discuss with Dr. Chakwas that I need a stronger prescription," the soldier sighed. She lifted her head just enough to slam it back down onto her fist, repeating rhythmically.
"Why is that?" Liara's stomach twisted uncomfortably upon hearing the bitter chuckle. It was more like the cry of a wounded animal.
"Because you're not here. What kind of question is that?"
"I'm not here?" Liara tilted her head to try and get a better look, but could only see the side of the soldier's face. Then it sank in, lining up with all her observations. She gingerly squeezed Lucy's shoulders. "I'm here, Shepard. I'm not a hallucination."
Another sardonic laugh. Lucy shook her head, before throwing it up to down her glass of wine with a desperation rather than an appreciation. She let out a heavy exhale upon finishing, wiping her lips with the back of her hand. She'd lost all the respect that she so precariously held before. Her forehead met with her fist soon enough, shaking her head over and over again.
"You're certainly more compelling than usual," Shepard murmured.
"I'm here, Lucy."
"Shepard, please," habit blurted.
It was the smallest fraction of hope, but Liara was going to take it and hold onto whatever she could. She renewed her efforts to massage the soldier's shoulders, taking the opportunity for her hand to slip over and study what she could feel of the synthetic shoulder socket. Her curiosity seemed to compel the soldier's curiosity to seek out and indulge itself too. Shepard rose her head and tilted it ever so incrementally, her gaze darting about as it followed the hand over her shoulder. Her eyebrows knit with confusion.
"What are you doing that for?"
"I'm wondering how you lost it," Liara answered plainly. She bit her tongue and struggled not to fall apart in pleas, to insist she wasn't the hallucination Shepard seemed to certain of. The soldier gradually twisted more towards her, that scrutinizing gaze coming up to study her face next.
"It was a few missions ago," Lucy revealed. She still seemed so sure of her own frail sanity, her disbelief for indulging this 'hallucination' evident on an expression that did not bother to tame itself. "I engaged in hand-to-hand combat with Saren." Her eyes went glassy, for a moment, traversing a thousand miles away. It came rocketing back, though her gaze immediately fell to the floor. "He ripped it out. I have not bothered filing a replacement with the Alliance. I've been adapting and operating just fine in the missions I am resigned to now."
"You fought with Saren?" Liara croaked, incredulous, her eyes widening over perhaps the most profound piece of information. Her eyes soldered to the other datapads left on the terminal table. Her heart rose with hope, despite the costs of it all, as she knelt down to confront Shepard, reaching to frame the soldier's jaw so that there would be no retreating. "Is it over, then? You've stopped him from finding the Conduit?"
Hope was decimated in the raw, dark chuckle. Lucy rolled her eyes and suddenly became more expressive, her sarcastic smirk betraying her true feelings inside.
"We established long ago that it's beneath you to ask such stupid questions, Dr. T'Soni." She tilted her head. "VI, an addendum to my agenda: please schedule a time where I may have another psychological evaluation with Dr. Chakwas, at her earliest convenience."
"I'm here, Shepard," Liara insisted, squeezing the jaw a little more firmly to force those eyes back on her. "I've woken up."
"Nonsense. Your vitals were-" Lucy stopped, glaring down at her fist as she balled it up in her lap. "Dr. Chakwas classified you as brain-dead."
Shock hit crudely. Liara reeled back a little, her heart constricting upon watching the way those eyes glassed up again - watering. Her thumb paced over the cheekbone she'd pathed earlier. She leaned up on her knee and carefully peeled the glasses off, tenderly pressing her forehead against the soldier's as she peered deep in those soulless eyes. "What's hurting you, Siame? Tell me. What are you thinking of right now?"
"How cruel it is that my mind is playing these tricks on me," Lucy hissed, her jaw rippling beneath the asari's hands as she clenched her teeth. She squeezed her eyes shut as hard as possible. "My medication is supposed to suppress these symptoms. I can't continue my duty if Dr. Chakwas won't be able to clear me during her evaluation." She sucked in a harsh breath, then another, her chest kicking in a shallow rhythm as her fingers gnarled into her uniform pants. "It's pitiful that I want my blanket so badly that I'm losing it like this. No respectable N7 soldier would ever be caught behaving like a behemoth, and here I am."
"It isn't pitiful," Liara reassured as calmly as she could, but seeing this was making her fall apart. It took a little to try to deduce what was meant. She was conflicted, for a moment, but instinct compelled her to listen to what was hurting her, what she was thinking of right now. She achingly rose up on her feet and drew Shepard's head in an embrace against her stomach, closing her eyes with a soft smile as she echoed. "Still a boulder as ever, I see."
Fingers shot up and dug painfully with a bruising grip on her hip. The face in her stomach pushed fiercely, burrowing deeper. Her head lulled back and she closed her eyes when they pricked with tears, hearing the sharp inhale muffled below - then another, and another. A body silently shook against her.
"It's fuckin' hard, okay?" The words warbled in between pained sucks of viscous breaths. "Definitely got something wrong with me if my own imagination is giving me hell. You've always been sweet in how I've been thinking of you. What happened?"
It was painful to hear this stubborn insistence that she wasn't real, compelling enough to make her doubt once more and wonder if she was indoctrinated, or dreaming. These foolish ideas needed to be laid to rest - but she wasn't quite ready to dive back into the fray of these confounding emotions, trying to temper the one that whispered of reckless things. She held onto Shepard's head a little tighter instead, her fingers raking back the sand-blonde hair as she felt her suit gradually dampen.
Desperate fingers clutched harder, a sting biting her hip that was sure to warrant yet another achy bruise. She gnawed on the flesh of her cheek and held on for as long as she could. It wrenched her apart with the way Shepard clung onto her, as if afraid she was going to disappear. She waited as patiently as she couldn't, before leaning back - and found that it was a little difficult with the way the soldier insisted she remained where she stood.
"Let me look at you, Siame."
"No."
"Why?"
"Because I'm afraid of what you'll see."
Liara repressed the urge to sigh. "I care not for tears, Shepard. Please let me-"
"Not that," Lucy whispered frailly. "I'm afraid you'll see that you're not the only one I've failed. You wouldn't possibly be here if you knew, otherwise. Have you forgotten? I failed at leading my pack, Liara, just like how you said I should. I lost Wrex and Kaidan. I failed them, failed everybody in not being able to stop Saren when he was right there, in my hands. A salarian captain lost his life the way I should have lost mine to protect my squad, but as usual, I've cheated death again. I don't... I just want this for another minute, before you go. Let me indulge for one more minute. Anything stronger than the medication I've already got now will numb me and make you disappear forever."
Impulse tore down the final barrier. She needed to prove herself to Lucy and herself. She existed, she knew where she stood. She roughly pulled away, not above implementing a healthy supplement of her biotics to keep Shepard where she was, creating enough space to lean down as she captured lips.
This time, the hand on her hip desperately pushed her away.
"This isn't right, I don't-"
"A figment of your imagination would respect boundaries imposed, whether on yourself or ones you would expect from me," Liara debated hotly, warding the hand off her with her biotics. "I am here, Lucy."
"Shep-"
"Lucy Fair Shepard. I am here, before you." She smirked a little, somehow, somewhere, when there was a fury of ideas roaring in her mind as to how best to solidify her existence. "And it is terribly disrespectful - very uncharacteristic of you - to continue to treat me as if I am not. Is this not compelling enough?" She inched closer again, her breaths upon the soldier's parted lips. "The Commander I know would not be sitting here feeling sorry for herself. Did you not say that there are other ways you desire to spend your time with me?"
Surprise blinked with wide eyes, eyes that were gratefully dried up of tears. It hurt to see them, hurt to see this stalwart so broken - but all the pieces were caught, collected, and will now be stitched back together. She knew they would be. She'd seen for herself what this woman had survived.
"You are no victim, Lucy. You have a history of victory. You need not be so compelled by this notion that you must offer your life - you do not die for people, you live for them, remember?" She reached and pulled on Shepard's hand, pulling and pulling until a bewildered soldier was standing tall again. "I am here. You need not grieve me any longer, because I do not plan to disappear so easily. We will honour those that we have lost together. We will fight so that their sacrifices will not have been in vain. We will stop Saren and so help me Goddess..." She reached into her suit, pulling out the necklace with the vial of dirt. "We are going to go back to Skymeadow beach so that you can have one too."
Recklessness teetered in front of her, though Shepard held onto her restraint. She looked ever more puzzled and conflicted as her gaze fell to the dampened spot on Liara's belly. The soldier blindly felt along the table and slid her glasses on, scrutinizing with an intense look.
Then she reached and poked Liara's nose.
A breath shuddered out in disbelief. "All this time I've had to get to know you... And you are still the most strangest asari I've ever met." She took a step back, her eyes soldered to the damp spot. "I've lost Saren. I have no leads. We're back to square one, ground zero." Her hand swayed a little, uncertain, heading in the direction of one of Liara's hands. Then it swung up as she reached towards the necklace, though thought against it, her hand lingering awkwardly in the air as another wave of conflict marred her face. "And you said I give mixed signals? I don't know if I'm allowed to touch you or not anymore, now." Her gaze surged up. "Should I draft another consent form?"
"Goddess, no, I'd rather do without one." Liara chuckled, stepping in without thought. She collected Lucy's hand, though felt sheepish over her own rash action earlier. There was a never-ending turmoil burning inside of her. She closed her eyes and selfishly indulged in the first impulse that guided her to kiss the soldier's knuckles. "This is... I apologize. I don't know what this is anymore."
"Well," Shepard huffed and scoffed, "It's about time somebody feels the way I've felt since the very beginning." Her confidence won over her hesitance as she pulled their link, their connection, letting go of Liara's hand to draw her in by the waist. "Then promise me this: tell me if there's even a smallest part of you that does not want anything to do with me. I desire nothing more than your utmost consent, to do right by you as you have always been for me, even when I was lost. Does that sound fair to you?"
Temptation threatened to muddle her from paying attention with a hard body against hers, and lips she still yearned just inches away. She tilted her head and closed her eyes as she leaned in. Annoyance struck with a harsh finger pushing her away by her mouth.
"We're negotiating here, Dr. T'Soni."
"Oh, for the love of the Goddess..." Liara sighed, exasperated. "You enjoy making things hard for me far too much, Shepard."
Not a beat was missed with the cheekiness. "Guilty."
Lips soon clasped over hers, tentatively, experimentally. There was a sense of exploration, still heavily influenced by disbelief - and hope. Lucy clearly wasn't that serious about treating this like an actual negotiation with how she'd indulged. Liara had her own doubts, her mind torn into two, selfishness sinking it's fangs in this opportunity to simply enjoy this connection she found herself missing.
Each tried to find something in the other, apart from answers. Lucy briefly broke the kiss as she pinched the bottom of the hoodie and pulled it over her head, abandoning it with the bottle of wine. Her tanktop soon followed, leaving her with her bandages and her bra. Her shoulder socket seemed to suffer some trauma, her skin stretched. Liara frowned and worriedly trailed her fingers along where it was soldered.
"It's fine," Lucy whispered with the kind of finality that seemed like she'd suffer no fretting. "True to our discussion in your apartment, I had no pain receptors installed. It didn't hurt."
"Doesn't it hurt now, here?" Liara chased a sliver of scabbing along the border. "I know you said, back then, that parts can be replaced, but... It's just..."
"Is it a strange sight for you? I can put your sweater back on if it troubles you to see this."
Your sweater. What a simple, innocent admission from this thief.
"No. Yes." Liara's forehead creased and she frowned a little. "I don't know. It is strange, and troublesome, but..." Her fingers rested over top where she could feel a heart beat faintly against her fingertips. "I'm scared to lose any more of you, inside more than outside." She wove her arms around and drew in for a loose embrace, hiding her face in the soldier's neck. "You thought I had died, an-"
"You did die."
Liara sucked in a sharp breath. Her heart plummeted with disappointment and her eyes pricked with tears. All this time... And still her very best was not enough to convince this tortured woman that she was not just stuck on a looping cycle of a nightmare, like her recording device.
"You did die," Shepard repeated, and words rushed even though her tone hushed. "In my mind, you did." Her fingers scooped up one of Liara's, drawing the hand to press the palm against the soldier's bruised stomach. "I tried so hard to keep you alive... But learning to live without you has been like feeling again when my drugs wear off. When I lost you, I lost more than you. I lost hope and any care for the consequences. I've been reckless on my missions. I couldn't care less when Sovereign spoke to me. I was desperate to join you, but to chase a meaningful reason the way that you did - because even when your death was for nothing, that it was meaningless... It was meaningful to you. I wanted to try to feel that. I never did. I didn't know how, because I lost the very thing that gave meaning to anything. You are the storm that's wrecked the shelter I built to try and protect myself from the true phantom pains that have always eaten away at me."
Lucy tentatively leaned to press her lips in, her breath a shutter as she seemed to wait and absorb the ones puffing into her mouth.
"It hurts far worse to live with the memory of a person rather than the memory of a limb." Her hand came up to cup Liara's cheek. "I've been trying to keep to your lessons, to honour everything you've done for me, to learn how to live with these emotions. I've been trying to keep with the dreams, so that I can at least try to find meaning in stopping the reapers. I've been researching wildlife on Thessia so that I can remember of the glitterwings and the crazy fucking fish you have. I've failed at every turn. How do you survive losing someone who means the universe itself? How do you still find meaning in a universe without them? I think I am beginning to understand why you were so reckless with your mother - if I had even the slightest chance to, I would have done the same for you in a heart beat."
Listening became harder and harder to stick with. Liara slipped her fingers over the one grazing her cheek with reverence. "Mother taught me once: a bird cannot fly well when trapped in a cage. I didn't understand what she meant at the time. I think I do now." She angled her head, gliding her tongue along the top of Lucy's lip to grant permission - to both of them.
"You're tired of violence. I could tell early on, during our first interactions. I've heard your screams. I've seen your nightmares. You've been rattling your cage all this time." Her hand fell and impulse took control as she'd undone the soldier's belt. "So let me show you what happens when you let love win instead."
Calloused fingers wrapped tightly around her wrist. Panic consumed Shepard's eyes, though they narrowed with a firm resolution. A distraction. "I told you back at your university, Dr. T'Soni: your compassion will get you killed someday. That applies metaphorically as well. Don't let it compromise you and the emotions you have the right to feel."
Liara leaned in, tasting the salt that still clung to Lucy's lips. She blindly unclasped the rope that hung on her neck and transferred it over.
"I never stopped exercising that right."