Chapter 33: Lucifer & the Angel

Time, they didn't have, but Liara couldn't bring herself to ask Lucy about what they were going to do about Saren. She didn't really have much of a choice now that she was planted on the bed with a soldier pacing to and fro in front of her, almost making it some kind of argumentative point to have the sweater stuffed right back on again. Liara smiled innocently when Lucy's eyes abruptly shot over, narrowing.

Realization was such a cruel thing, indeed.

"You touched me again when I was sleeping," Lucy grumbled, and it seemed as though she was trying to cross her arms - up until she saw she clearly couldn't. It didn't stop her from puffing her chest authoritatively. "You said you wouldn't, but you did, and you kept doing it, and what would you have done if I-"

"I was prepared with my biotics," Liara answered calmly. She knew it wasn't going to be enough to quell the catastrophe unfolding within the human mind's eye. "I needed to touch you."

For a brief moment, Lucy looked as though she was going to protest and argue to the end of her days. And then she stopped pacing. Her expression melded into that of a thoughtful one, and she sighed as she massaged her forehead. "I don't know what to do. I had a hundred other ideas planned on how to make it up to you - you're skipping all those steps. I was committing to our new terms and conditions."

Liara chuckled. "Relationships aren't like contracts to negotiate."

"Aren't they?" Lucy had an endearingly conflicted look, planting her hand on her hip. "It's made more sense to me to treat it like a hostage negotiation in order for me to be successful in understanding the complications that arise." She strode to her terminal, leaning over to type and login. "Advanced concepts and techniques in hostage negotiations encourage five core notes: insist one-on-one talks, explore the feelings underlying the other side's demands, allow heated emotions to defuse over the passage of time, collaborate on solving the other party's short-term problems, and finally, help your counterpart save face when you come out ahead."

Why did this not surprise Liara in the slightest bit? It truly was such a catastrophic realization that she could sit here, absorb this wealth of information, and not be the least bit perturbed that Lucy was still soldiering with their relationship. Guide, Liara could, but what she could not do is ignore the part that these little moments - and amusing ways Lucy had looked so baffled, trying her best to comprehend this all - was why she'd found herself gravitating to this woman at her core.

"This is part of her - this is her."

"Ah, here's the contact information. VI, please send a request to the VRS Law Firm on the Citadel that I would like to schedule an appointment with their first available lawyer, at their earliest convenience. Also include in the message that due to the nature of my occupation, we may need to do a call while I am on a mission and confidentiality is of utmost paramount importance should sensitive information arise."

"A law firm?" Liara's head tilted in confusion, trying to see what it was that the soldier was looking up on the terminal. Then her heart constricted in panic. "Are you looking up an attorney for us to negotiate new terms about our relationship?"

"Hm?" Lucy glanced her shoulder, equally puzzled. Then she whirled about and shook her head sternly. "Oh, no. This is for something else, unrelated. I need assistance with handling some of my financial assets and investments." She logged out her terminal and strode back, though seemed uncertain of how to proceed as she abruptly halted in front of the archaeologist. Lucy's joints popped about again as she slowly eased into kneeling, a guilty look stricken across her face. "There is nothing more that I want than to touch you again, but... But I need to feel like I've earned it again. I don't..." She sighed, slinging her forearm up on her knee. "May I ask for your assistance in navigating my omni-tool? I'm tired of enlisting the VI for every little thing. Or, wait." She bounced up into standing and paced back to her terminal.

Anxiety may have very well been screamed in Liara's face, with how restless the soldier was now, her movements lacking it's methodical thought. She rose from the bed and decided to approach, to see what was being looked up on the terminal now. Her heart swelled before it plummeted, a halfhearted chuckle tumbling out of her upon seeing the terms Lucy input in the search engine.

How to flirt.

{You've been flirting with me all this time?}

{Incompetently. But yes. How about now? I am moving my lips now.}

"Someone like me never had a chance to begin with, courting someone with your intelligence and emotional aptitude," Lucy confessed in a hopeless murmur. "I knew from the start what I was damning you to, where you may as well have been dating a geth all this time. But I was... Selfish. Hopeful. Intrigued and curious. I wanted to see more of you, learn other things apart from the educational topics we engaged in, in the beginning. But I worked to earn it, then. I got the rocks. I got the robes. I gave you access to the Akuze report. Now what do I do to earn it all again? Trust is not so easily gotten, especially once broken. More importantly, the most critical question: do I deserve it?" She stopped scrolling through her web page, sighing as she shut it down. "I did not expect to be exploring moral ethics at every turn in this relationship. I'm beginning to contemplate signing up for an online course, in hopes I won't be so incompetent at it anymore."

If only this wealth of information, these hopes and fears and insecurities, were explored at an earlier time - but at the very least, they were being explored at all when Liara hadn't ever truly expected it. She had her surprises, but this was a new level of reflection, watching this mind unfold aloud as Lucy tried to talk through her feelings and issues rather than bury them or explode them away.

Hope compelled her too, and she rested a hand between the soldier's shoulder blades. Her emotions were as clouded as anything, but it was as clear as day with what she wanted in this moment. She loosely wrapped her arms down low around Lucy's hips, careful not to put too much pressure on the back for wounds that evidently were still in the slovenly process of healing.

"It's a wonderful idea, but I fear you may not get the answers you are seeking in particular," Liara murmured. She rested her chin on the soldier's shoulder and paid attention to how the muscles rippled in her arm, tensing far more than ever before. "Relationships are still different than the principles of ethics that you would be exploring in a course. The answers will always be unclear, unknown, between us. I don't yet know what to do, what to say, where to tread - I am simply taking this moment by moment, moving forward with hope rather than fear. I think... I mean, I don't want you to listen only to me, Shepard. Listen to yourself and what you want to do, and say, but... If there's one thing I can offer you to try, it's to try to move forward with hope too, rather than let this fear of failure consume you. Arguments and differences of opinions will happen. Goddess knows we've had a lot of that, lately, and it won't be the last time."

"You don't deserve that, though. You deserve better," Lucy argued, but her tone was hushed and still drenched with guilt. It became evident as to why with how hesitant she was with her hand, going from grabbing the table, to skirting the edge of Liara's fingers.

"I've been saying that from the start for you," Liara chuckled. "You're still so certain you deserve the worst. But... In light of our experiences together, I have hope that you share the same hope too: that you hope you deserve better. I am here to say and show that you do. You once said you are not keeping a score between us. I think there was more wisdom to heed in there than either of us realized at the time - for instead of focusing on tallying up moments of kindness to 'earn' something, we simply focus on being more right for each other, no matter the wrongs." She angled her head, tucking her nose in the crook of Lucy's neck and shoulder. "I don't want to dwell on the past, Shepard. It's natural for us to have our differences of opinion - we're two completely different people, after all. It is okay. If it aids you, then remember of one of the techniques you mentioned earlier. Let the passage of time carry us, rather than trying to wrap the matter up quickly."

Liara wanted to say more, but Lucy suddenly turned in her arms and rested a finger on her lips, her eyes aimed up at the ceiling. A new voice entered the room through the speaker.

≤Commander?≥

"Got a status update for me, Joker?"

≤Yeah. ETA to Solcrum in two hours.≥

"Understood. Please inform Tali, Garrus and Ashley as well, so that they know when they'll need to start preparing. Ensure they are aware of Solcrum's atmospheric readings and that they have appropriate gear to deal with a level 1 heat hazard."

≤You got it, Commander.≥

When the finger left, Liara took that as a sign it was safe to speak freely again, scrutinizing the soldier closely. She never retracted her arms and maintained the pressure of proximity, secretly delighted at how uncomfortable and conflicted it appeared to make Lucy feel.

"What's on Solcrum?"

"A geth outpost. It's my last idea and Alliance intel has been feeding us locations - the geth have been setting up small outposts in the Armstrong Cluster and Skyllian Verge. We've been working to eliminate them before the incursion turns into a full-scale invasion, and Tali has been combing through their data stores to see if she can yield any intel on Saren." Lucy tried to step back, create some distance between them. Her gaze fell to the archaeologist's arms. "R-release me."

"No," Liara whispered quietly, cheekily. She smiled when annoyed eyes shot up, a head angled down to peer over the rim of her eyeglasses. "I have my suspicions that you still believe I'm not here."

"Mm hm? And now I have my suspicions that you practice lying like it's a religion," Lucy huffed.

But her hand came up on the hip, hopeful in the tender way it massaged along the bony prominence. Her gaze fell to the archaeologist's lips now, instead. Lucy inhaled slowly, deeply, then pulled a little closer so that she could drop her head and rest it on Liara's shoulder, hushed with her sigh.

"I missed this so much. I know I shouldn't have, but... I couldn't help it. Is this truly okay? You won't regret allowing me to touch you like this?"

"No," Liara murmured. She softened at the sound of a hitched breath, an incredulous chuckle accompanied by disbelieving eyes. She smiled. "Really, really."

"Mm..." Lucy's head fell back upon it's perch. She squeezed the asari's hip tighter and pulled a little. "A mystery of the ages, for someone to possess this much compassion, no matter the trials and tribulations. I hope someday your mother will be able to return to us, somehow, so that I can thank her for raising such a..." She groped with words, struggling. She sounded almost sheepish with what tumbled out. "Such an angel. There is no other word that I can think of that describes you best." A tiny subtle smirk - true to her ways - hitched the corner of her lips as she rose her head. "Lucifer and the Angel, what an unorthodox pair we make."

Arms glided up until Liara wrapped them around the soldier's shoulders, pressing closer. She glanced behind to see where the table dug into Lucy's lower back, about to step away, but she was held in place as hopeful lips tentatively sought and captured hers. She melted in the comfort and familiarity of the kiss, the warmth of the rigid body sinking through her thin suit and the thickness of the stolen sweater.

It brought her no short amount of amusement, this reminder.

"I still have things scheduled on my agenda," Lucy blasphemed in between kisses, though she immediately caught on to her hint and stopped short upon receiving a warning look. "Yup. Got it. Perfectly understood." She angled her head up to the ceiling. "VI, please clear the next two hours of my agenda and classify it as..." She held a contemplative look for a brief moment, then smirked down at Liara. "Unscheduled activities."

"What ever shall we decide what we would like to partake in?" Liara breathed, a laugh bubbling in her chest when even a single hand was enough to lift her by sliding under her hamstring, and a body checking her up in air to direct her to land on the work desk. She hissed when practised lips found her thundering pulse in her throat and suckled, teeth grazing. Her hands tugged on the bottom of the soldier's sweater until it was pulled over and abandoned again. The necklace swung between them, and she reached up to snatch the vial in her palm. She carefully tugged on the taut rope as she smirked in Lucy's face. "Still think I'm not here?"

"At this point, I don't even care if this is just madness," Lucy hissed, her eyes igniting with a sinful hunger. "I must rectify my failure to make you scream before, and do as the erotic documentaries do."

Liara groaned, blushing fiercely. "Not a documentary." Her finger surged up on the soldier's lips to stop her while she was ahead. "Not a chronicle either, Shepard."

"Regardless."

Lucy's fingers found the zipper of the archaeologist's suit, unceremoniously ripping it down to the navel. She peeled away one particular side first and grunted in aches and pains when she'd abruptly knelt down, her mouth finding Liara's fresh scar engraved on her ribs.

"I will not settle for anything less than hearing you beg for more this time."

Fire served to beat ferociously beneath Liara's cheeks, caught off guard by the vehement reverence that left burning trails in the wake of a calloused hand gliding along her skin. Her one arm was freed from her suit, but the rest had yet to follow - and Lucy didn't seem like she held any intention to fully disrobe them. She shot back up into standing and leaned over, her thighs balancing her by pressing firm against the desk. She reached along Liara's lower back and jerked her forward until her rump nestled on the edge, her legs pushed apart by the soldier's waist.

Pain briefly zinged down with a rough grip on her hamstring, encouraging her to wrap her legs up around Lucy. The searing of her complexion never cooled the slightest bit. She was beginning to worry exactly what the nature of past 'documentaries' were, back when they were utilized for more intimate research.

She wasn't truly complaining though.

Desperate to not flail about in her precarious balance, she hooked her hands on Lucy's shoulders and held on for dear life even when she was forced to lean back, with the body insistently pressing against hers. She'd gasped in the kiss when bold fingers squeezed in between her suit and navel, sliding further down to touch her intimately with what little space they had between their bodies.

There was a recklessness to the movement, now, and though it became evident that the soldier wasn't confident in her skill with the way she'd look down often, repositioning herself, the madness of this all compelled Liara to seek out more. She'd quickly unzipped more of her suit until it ended at the base of her pelvis, allowing more freedom of movement for Lucy's hand. Her blush burned hotter upon looking up and meeting the intense gaze observing her, growing sheepish as she instead pulled on the soldier's shoulders to hide her face in the crook of the neck.

Teeth gently bit down on her bare shoulder, and she groaned upon feeling a finger enter her core at the same time. She held on tightly and her hips couldn't establish a consistent rhythm to meet Lucy, the rough desperation to have her chasing her end felt with every thrust and curl of fingers deep inside of her. Her arms unknowingly coiled and she'd barely been aware of the way her fingers clawed up into the back of Lucy's hair, undoing the dishevelled ponytail and holding on for dear life. She bucked and whimpered when fingertips raked down her inner walls, the pressure building rapidly inside of her.

"No," she blurted when she'd felt Lucy's hand slide out of her, lamenting over the loss of building pleasure. She'd been pulled along the desk again and awkwardly slumped with the tip of her head braced on the wall, hearing a rip with her suit tugged. She couldn't care. She couldn't care to suppress whatever sounds clawed out her throat when she'd felt a blissful tongue glide up along her.

"No," she lamented again, feeling a coil spring and snap all at once inside of her. Her hips thrust up and she'd held onto the edge of the table as the waves crashed down on her, groaning in disappointment that she'd already come when she wanted this to last.

Suddenly, she was pulled by her wrist to stand up, her legs quivering and ready to disappear right out from under her. Her suit was roughly pulled off her other shoulder, rolling down to collect at her thighs and hang uselessly upon the floor. She nearly tripped when she was pushed along and turned until the chilling metal wall embraced her front, and she gasped.

"Scream for me," Lucy whispered with a sense of desperation, her hard body coming up to conform from behind. She'd planted her feet along the sides of Liara's, her hand squeezing and massaging the rump up until she'd slid inside, pumping her fingers again. The sensations were incredibly dulled, leaving nothing but pressure without pleasure.

Teeth came down to bite hard on Liara's shoulder, her mouth opening in a choked gasp as the pain diffused along. Her cheeks ignited with another wave of searing heat upon hearing the slick sounds pop below with every thrust, her hands holding onto the wall in a meagre attempt for some stability before her knees melted away.

"My name," Lucy hissed, "Please."

"Sh-Shep-"

"No, my name. My first name. I want to hear you. I need you to make it real. I need a happy memory with it. Please." She bit again, her muffle choked and frail. "Please." A beat, her voice gone gruff and gravelly. "VI, disable my translator implant." Her mouth paved kisses up from the shoulder to the back of the nape, where some of the most sensitive nerve endings resided.

Shivers surged down Liara's spine, chased by goosebumps when a tongue traced the folds of her fringe. She tried, Goddess help her, she tried to collect her voice, but all she managed were hisses in between clenching teeth.

Had she known what she was truly going to unleash here, she would've spoken up at the locker rooms so long ago.

"Goddess," Liara whimpered, feeling the coil twist and turn in the pits of her belly again. She shuddered with every single kiss trailing down the ridges of her spine. When Lucy lavished the center of her lower back, a desperation overwhelmed her and she abruptly twisted to turn around, breaking their connection crudely. Her legs ached at the loss of the calloused fingers that were deep inside, but she was overcome with the need to kiss this woman senseless instead.

Fingers sank in the unkempt blonde hair and she tugged as her hint, knowing that she wouldn't be understood if she tried to talk anyways. But...

{It really did it for me to hear your language, and not understanding a single thing you were saying. It made me focus more on your tones and your emotions, helped me realize how lucky I am.}

"Lucy," she murmured. She saw how the eyes shut off, but pressed on ahead. "Luce. Please... Come up here." She tugged again, waiting for the soldier to rise from kneeling.

That devilish hunger returned, a sinful smile gracing Lucy's lips. Her hand skirted up the side of the asari's thigh, sliding along the back to grab and massage her rump, much to her timid embarrassment. Her breath stuttered out of her when those lips came to meet a different set of her lips. Her head lulled back against the cold wall as a bold tongue returned with a more experimental approach, purposeful and methodical as it explored her core. She blushed again upon hearing something muffled against her.

"Goddess, Lucy, could you at least...? I-I'm not..." She sighed, frustrated over her mortification, more so that she continued this futile effort when she wouldn't be understood regardless. "This is so tawdry. And-" another sigh, but out of content when the familiar throb of pleasure chased along with the electricity that tingled between her legs. The firm hand squeezing her rump was her only pillar of support.

All that desperation melted away, now replaced by curiosities, apparently. Liara wasn't entirely privy to it now that emotions had time to settle, and she turned her head to press her cheek against the chilling metal in an effort to try and not be overwhelmed by the vulgarity of this all, with someone who seemed keen to torment her with this experimentation instead.

Abruptly, it stopped. Lucy pulled away and stared at her, her glasses crooked on her face, slightly smeared and speckled. Liara absolutely refused to let her mind wander and think of why. The soldier grunted as she rose up into standing, her smile more earnest, but also nervous. She made the whole blasted situation ten times worse when she'd leaned in to kiss, and Liara flushed upon tasting herself. She welcomed the steady hand now innocently on her hip, a thumb pacing to and fro over the jutting bony prominence.

"You're taking very long to climax. Is what I'm doing unsatisfactory, or am I incompetent? Could my capability to arouse you use more work and research? Would you rather switch our dynamics around so that you be the one that holds control? I was under the impression that you would rather I be the one that takes the lead so that you can safely lose control instead. Are you uncomfortable with that, after all?"

Oh, blasted damnation, tides take this all.

"Please, please tell me we aren't actually going to converse about this now," Liara inwardly prayed. The translator was turned off - what could she even say?

"Luce..."

It was all she could come up with. She made a mental note to commit to learning Lucy's language in the event she really needed to communicate, in emergencies such as this. She framed the soldier's cheeks, endeared by the doubts that swum in Lucy's eyes. She valiantly sacrificed herself and embraced the embarrassment that came with tasting herself again, upon Lucy's lips.

Blindly, she reached about until she collected the hand on her hip. She squeezed her eyes shut as firmly as possible, unable to find the courage to look, as she guided the hand down between her legs. The kiss was broken when Lucy inhaled sharply. At the very least, she didn't say anything - thank the Goddess - and her fingers tentatively slid inside, the tips curling in and raking down Liara's core. The slick sounds of skin colliding had a more mindful rhythm, and she melted back against the wall as she tuned in to every delicate movement - a complete contrast to the heady hot rough rush that consumed them earlier.

"Dr. Liara T'Soni," Lucy breathed as if with reverence, her mouth trailing along in butterfly kisses until she'd pressed to the aural. "I have never witnessed anything more phenomenal than this in my entire life. Thank you. Thank you for this moment, this happy memory you are once again helping me create." She recruited another finger, stopping her pace to allow time to adjust. "Hearing you like this, seeing you like this... Getting to see your heart once more when I thought I'd lost it... I don't quite know how to express or explain this feeling. I keep remembering the conversation we had in the sky-car on the way to your university."

Pleasure dulled and ebbed farther away, though Liara wasn't particularly heartbroken about it, now intrigued and captivated by this new sense of exploration. She sucked in her breath and held it when her mind raced ahead of itself, leaving her heart to thunder away in it's attempt to chisel out her chest. She had an inkling and yearned to hear how Lucy ventured on to demystify her emotions for herself.

"At the time, I understood your meaning, but I don't think I fully comprehended and realized the weight of your meaning. You taught me that I can't classify feelings, that emotions are like the waves of the water I stood in at the beach. There aren't definitive beginnings or ends. Being enamoured, having that passion, doesn't start out that way. Your passion with the Protheans started as interest, an adventure to sate curiosities that turned into the passion you have for it now. The trouble I have now is that I don't know what to call what I feel. I was intrigued and curious about you, and now I'm enamoured. I can say that without a doubt. I adore you, but... But it's more than what I remember feeling for Shifty or the other barn animals."

"I should hope so," Liara thought wryly, caught in between amusement and trepidation that she's about to be likened to love for an animal.

"It's more like how I felt for my parents... What I remember of them, anyways."

Suddenly, Lucy stopped all together what she was doing and instead pulled the archaeologist in a fierce embrace. She was caught off guard, and her heart cried with empathy upon feeling rigid muscles quiver against her, remembering all too painfully well what it entailed as the body silently shook against her.

"I miss my pops. I miss him annoying me, messing with my fishing line, making me lose my bites. I miss mom and her laughter when she taught me how to build and improvise heat sources."

Liara shuddered upon the wretched memory of the flamethrower, and her melted sieve.

"I miss them so much, Liara. I missed you just as badly like that too. I can't-" her voice cracked, the words fading in and out of existence. "Please. Please..."

What she was pleading for was not yet known, and Lucy didn't seem like she could say any time soon.

"I've tried to dream, you know? Tried to meditate too. I conscripted Lucky to help me but he was an ass."

"She," Liara quietly corrected out of habit, even if she couldn't be understood.

"I played sounds like the ones I heard at the beach, tried to paint a scene in my head and focus only on those images. The sounds of seagulls and insects helped. I thought of a boat, of fishing lines cast out so that I could catch stuff for the stupid stall I'd set up on Thessia, maybe even learn how to cook Shirvan. It took time, but I could visualize that boat and hear the seagulls without sounds playing to help me... But it always fell apart when I'd try to picture you on the boat with me. I missed you." Her arm tightened bruisingly hard. Her body shook again and she burrowed her face to the point her glasses pricked sharply against Liara's neck, but she didn't dare move, apart from embracing just as hard. "I missed you, I'm enamoured with you."

Abruptly again, Lucy tore away this time. The pain that was so easily stricken across a usually-stoic face was making the archaeologist's eyes burn, but she blinked away and tried to stall her tears as she tried to temper patience in herself, to give the safe space and time for emotions to continue feeling. It didn't seem that they would.

"I have to stop Saren."

Without another word or even a shred of enlightenment as to what she was planning, Lucy...

Left.

Dumbfounded, all Liara could manage to do was stare, her mouth slightly parted as her jaw slowly dropped over time. The cold air that embraced her instead of a hard rigid body served as a painful reminder, and her gaze panned down to her naked state, her bra half up and over a breast, her suit still dilly-dallying at her thighs. She was left in this state. The breath she held whooshed out of her in disbelief - she didn't know whether she wanted to laugh or cry first.

Awkwardly, as with all their blasted intimate interactions, she was left to collect and compose herself as best as one couldn't. She was skeptical that anyone anywhere in this universe would be able to do so.

"She hasn't even asked me about my meld with mother - not that I yielded any information, but still...!"

Indignantly, she clothed herself, ignoring the blush that pounded at her cheeks upon cruelly learning her zipper seam was ripped away from her suit, the end of it dangling uselessly. She still pinched the seam together and zipped it up, ignoring the clear patch of skin that poked out through the hole where her belly was. She picked up her abandoned sweater with a huff.

"And she left without clothing herself! Just what exactly is she planning to do now? Goddess..."

Another scoff.

"That woman will be the death of me someday, I am sure of it."

Without an agenda to help Liara track the elusive Commander down, she resorted to heading to her quarters to enlist the aid of the Normandy's proud source of the latest scuttlebutt - but it was empty. Not even Lucky was here. She was confounded upon her realization that she hadn't come across any marine, even the ones that usually stood guard.

Intense emotions still thrummed along her nerves and buzzed hard under her skin. She was a chaotic mess of herself now, with her mind once again torn into two. She couldn't make up her mind. There were chastises and yet also encouragements over the risqué... Encounter... Between her and Lucy. It left her muddled with her own image of herself, once so insistent that she wasn't like other asari in their maiden stage.

Now she could perhaps debate she was the most promiscuous of them all.

"I'm not. And I'm certain it's not Lucy's intention to elicit such feelings, but..."

But she couldn't help but feel she was abandoned to feel this way. It needed to be rectified, communicated with patience and fairness, as they've always done. If she was going to change anything in her approach, she might knock a little harder to ensure that sense got straight through to the Commander with little room left for any misinterpretations.

Upon investigating many empty recreational sectors, Liara went out on a limb and ventured to the gym. She heard distant yells and it propelled her feet faster, a new fire lit up beneath her.

"This is what she left me for? To abuse her marines! So help me Goddess, if I hear her say 'maggots' even once, I will not hold back what I think again."

Oh, there were going to be consequences for this. No compassion. No understanding.

A resolve that was challenged upon entering the gym.

Marines toiled endlessly in sparring matches, indeed. Every single one of them had an arm tied behind them. Lucy went from pair to pair as she held out her hand to help lift downed soldiers from the ground, a proud look on her face as her mouth moved to speak to them. Liara had seen that even Helen was back at it again, despite being exempt from these classes. She looked more determined than ever, carrying herself with unbreakable confidence in her maneuvers.

Lucy's voice rose and commanded the attention of the gym, bellowing. "Very good, each and every single one of you. You should be proud of your results - and remember, your training will never fail you. What you put into it is what you will get out of it." She paced down to the other end of the gym, her gaze catching Liara's. She seemed to stop for a moment, contemplating, and then there was a devilish connotation to her subtle smirk. "Untie your arms," she addressed her marines, "I have a new demonstration and trainer for you today. Dr. T'Soni, could you come here to assist?"

"Oh no." Liara froze in her spot and her heart screeched to a halt. Dread pooled in her stomach. She did not like where this was going.

Frantic waving caught her peripheral vision and she forced a smile in return to Helen's excitability in her corner of the gym. She couldn't thaw from her spot. All eyes were on her.

Was it too late to go back to the infirmary, maybe ask Dr. Chakwas to stick her in a cryo pod instead?

"Dr. T'Soni?" Lucy inquired again, beckoning with a wave. "Your biotics will prove to be invaluable in the next drill."

"Y-you have biotics too," Liara spluttered in her fear. She cast a heated glare when she heard Helen snigger, and Talitha jeering under her breath. The nerve of those two to tease her despite this impending doom! They didn't even seem the least bit surprised that she was awake - unless they didn't know what transpired, which was more likely - but they were going to be punished anyways. She marched up to the front of the class and ignored the queasy quaking of her stomach, the glitterwings beating fiercely inside.

"In this next drill," Lucy revealed, "We're going to learn defensive maneuvers against someone with biotics. As we know from intel and exposure, Saren has employed several krogan battlemasters. It's important to be prepared in the event any of you will meet one of these battlemasters on the field, and-"

Lucy's yelp cut her explanation short. Liara wasn't above employing her biotics to catch the soldier unprepared, as a last ditch effort to escape this demonstration before her torment would begin. She lifted Lucy and made Helen panic, diving out the way with a body flying towards her. Liara took advantage of the chaos that unfolded with some of the marines coming over to help the Commander back up on her feet, rushing to escape the gym. To her dismay, the door's button suddenly beamed red.

It was locked.

Horror singled out one particular word in her reflection earlier, calling for a swift amendment.

"Someday? No, no, no... She's going to be the death of me today."