Chapter 37: You Made Me Feel

{Take my hand, Commander. Lean on me. I'll carry you forward until you feel like you're able to try. And if you still can't make it? That's fine. I'll keep carrying you.}

Ocean waves reached her ears. She opened her eyes, and above her there was the starry night sky, just like how she'd hallucinated it before.. She instinctively reached up towards it as cybernetic fingers stretched out, as if to catch a star - and she smiled when a blue hand reached beside hers. Something was slightly amiss, though, but what? The insects and crickets buzzed about. The sand felt cool beneath her, and the atmosphere was... It was serene. The happy memory was exactly how she remembered it, with her only regret being that she'd now realized she hadn't truly appreciated it then.

But she could now.

She was at peace.

"You deserve it," hummed the voice she dearly wished to hear, earlier, when she was dying in the rubble. "You aren't dead, either."

Lucy looked over at the body that laid beside hers, their hands falling back to rest on their stomachs. The blue orbs swum with something that Lucy couldn't ever figure out before, but now she somehow could. Her chest tightened with pain. She looked down at herself to check if she was wounded, and Liara's gentle chuckle put a stop to that.

"You're safe here."

T'Soni slowly shifted until she'd laid on her side, reaching until her fingers slipped over. Lucy had to watch where they were, for she couldn't feel them, and her brow pinched. She wasn't... What was this feeling? It wasn't dissatisfaction, but she needed to rectify where the archaeologist touched her. The synthetic arm - especially a geth arm - was undeserving. Lucy reached over with her organic hand, soon to find out what was amiss.

Her forearm.

Desolation crept into the atmosphere, but she was feeling the echos of it. The pieces of the puzzle were falling into place. She looked back up at Liara, now struggling to breathe from the depth of the agony she could feel in the intensity of those blue orbs. She sat up and, out of options, had resorted to clutching the asari's shoulder with her geth arm, careful and mindful of the output.

"I'm alive, I'm safe here," Lucy whispered, more so to remind T'Soni.

"You... You are, yes..."

One look around, of the ocean that remained static for a few precious seconds, gave her the final puzzle piece. She sank back in the numb sand with disappointment.

"This isn't real," the soldier sighed. "I forgot to ask Dr. Chakwas for a stronger prescription."

"This isn't a hallucination either," Liara explained softly, moving until she'd laid on the other side to rest her head on the crook of where Shepard's organic shoulder met with her armpit. "I apologize I... Didn't quite ask for your permission to do this... But we're in a meld right now. You kept having your nightmares, and Dr. Chakwas said that would slow your recovery drastically. So, after several attempts, I've found you and constructed this for you. We're stuck in a dreamless state, but at least you are at peace - and be able to heal as such."

Lucy nodded and hummed with appreciation. "Thank you. It's imperative that I recover quickly, yes. Saren is still out there." She glanced down, her gaze combing over the asari's crest to fall back to what was missing. "Did Tali build a new hand for me? Why can't I see it here?"

There was a sharp inhale. Agony shot through, and Shepard almost gasped at the way it felt like something was crushing her ribs in. Instinct compelled her to look down at her chest to check for wounds, disconcerted by these sensations of pain, yet seeing nothing that warranted as such. She begun to roll up her uniform shirt, until fingers slid over her knuckles and something inside had told her desist what she was doing. She glanced over with concern when it seemed as though the wild fluctuations appeared to be emanating from T'Soni, who has burrowed her face and focused on returning to a state of serenity.

"You can't if you suffocate yourself like that," Lucy scolded, further confused when there was a bark of a laugh, though muffled by her shoulder.

There was a defeated sigh, next. A different pain warped this, between them, and Lucy was at a loss for words and decisions. She didn't know what to do with this wealth of information. She reached across and twisted a little so that she could pull the asari on top of her, then carefully hugged. She leaned down and pressed her lips in at the top of the asari's crest, grumbling at her own incompetence.

"I'm sorry. All this time, and I still don't know what to say, or how to comfort you. You'd think I'd have figured it out by now, since last we laid on this beach."

Liara shook her head, though she seemed to chide herself for not being brave either. Lucy shook her head harder.

"What nonsense are you telling yourself? I told you before: saying such stupid things is beneath you, Dr. T'Soni. That really doesn't do it for me."

Another small laugh. It seemed to help imbue what was already there with persistence, and T'Soni tucked her elbows in against the soldier's sides and the sand, pushing herself up so that their eyes met. "I've been hearing what you're finally..." She trailed off, as if she was thinking against it, and the disadvantage Shepard once thought this all was had become the advantage that Liara insisted it was.

Except now the roles were reversed.

And Lucy smiled smugly for it, having finally yielded the evidence for her point before.

"Told you it's a disadvantage."

"It's not," Liara rolled her eyes, her head tumbling back on the chest with a huff.

Silence hung over them, and after a time, Lucy caved in. "No... It's not."

But it didn't do anything to fill this emptiness, this distance between them. It was as if there was an earthquake of powerful magnitude to rip them far apart, and the soldier was scrambling for solutions. She didn't care for the distance. So long as there was at least water between them, she would fight and swim to reach Liara, and demolish this void between them.

One thing Lucy knew she wasn't, though, was charismatic and emotionally apt - but she was determined to learn. She was coming to terms with her new tenure of this profession of being a human-

Another laugh. "It's not a job, Luce..."

-rather than being a unit.

That paradox of whether this was an advantage versus a disadvantage struck again. Lucy could feel the answers through the meld, along with the host of overwhelming emotion threatening to drown the asari. There seemed to be a great disturbance revolving around the loss of her organic hand, but she couldn't quite understand all the why's she felt. The only thing that perturbed her was the knowledge she wouldn't be able to feel Liara anymore.

But that was only through her hands.

There were other ways, other ventures - like now, with how the asari rested atop her.

"That's not my issue," Liara sighed, and she seemed even more dejected upon hearing what Lucy was thinking. "You're still... I should have expected this. I have, really, so I suppose I am... I just wish..." Another sigh, raw and boiling with undertones of frustration that threatened to shatter the serenity. "I just wish you would have what you deserve, and I'm faced with this over and over again: that you cannot abandon this path, because it is all you are allowed to have."

"I should be allowed to have more," Lucy murmured the argument she'd heard echoed in Liara's voice. The soldier didn't know what to think when she'd felt a subtle nod against her. She brainstormed painful ways to eradicate this despair and imagined it to be the wretched poisonous cooking once fed to her. She smiled with pride when she could feel a lightness, followed by laughter, and Liara hugged her by tightening her elbows in on the sides.

"You're never going to let me live that down, are you?"

"Absolutely not."

"You've had your revenge to pay me back, though."

"That you think it was suitable enough to erase the debt you've incurred with your grave transgression is endearing, Dr. T'Soni. But terribly naive of you." Lucy looked down and smiled when blue orbs unearthed themselves to look up, dancing with tired mirth. She was tentative in the way she'd moved her arm so as not to inflict harm when she'd trailed a finger along the curve of the asari's crest. She wished she could feel it, but she was not one to dwell. She'd adopted a practice of accepting life's challenges, and felt the prod of curiosity beckon her. She leaned in and felt the crest with her lips instead.

"Sometimes it is necessary to accept who you are, what you do, and what society does to you," Lucy echoed the teachings. "It's not the same as resignation, but rather, accepting the current situation in order to make peace with it and either make the best of it, or move on." She pressed another chaste kiss, relaxing that she could still feel the warmth of skin pulse through her like this. "I think I used to struggle, Liara. I'm not sure. Along the way, I suppose I started to bury, rather than accept. But I know I can't bury this. My only other option is to accept it."

"I wish you wouldn't have to."

"But I do." Lucy paved kisses, then squeezed the asari's arm to encourage her to sit up, so that they both could. She leaned in and captured quivering lips, wishing she could take this pain away.

"That's what I wish I could do for you," T'Soni chuckled dejectedly in the kiss. "It still baffles me that you're still okay. That just isn't normal, Luce."

"We've already established in the beginning that it's a good thing we aren't like most people." Lucy leaned back with a warm smile, wiping - as gently as she hoped she was - across a cheekbone to eradicate the tear. "Please don't cry. You and I both know I'm still horribly incompetent with that. I'll make you feel worse."

There was a small measure of a smile. "Is that a threat?"

"It's a promise." Lucy pulled the asari in by her shoulder, wrapping her arm around as she'd tucked her face to breathe warmth in a neck that thankfully wore no old bruises here. "Perhaps I should be allowed to have more," she whispered, rushing when she'd felt that god-awful chest tightening agony again. "You know, Liara, it takes a lot of courage for me to admit that you are right, even when you unarguably are. And talking about my strengths has always been one of my strengths."

A beat.

"And I am right."

Deadpan eyes combed the subtle cheekiness quirking the corners of her lips. Mission completed, and it was a resounding success. Naturally. Lucy was the one leading it, after all.

"Okay, Luce, we need to have a serious conversation about your arrogance when it strikes you."

Lucy laughed. She pressed in to kiss the pulse that hammered against her lips, indulging in the vestiges of annoyance that plucked at T'Soni's conscious. It was shared between them that there was something seriously wrong with how they both were growing to revel in the little moments of getting revenge on each other, but it was established long ago that it was a great source of amusement for the soldier. She held on tighter to be able to roll them seamlessly, sitting up to take a good hard look in Liara's eyes - for those obvious pains lingered.

"We're untouchable," Shepard stated sternly, and held up what was left of her organic forearm. She pushed on even when that agony wrapped around her ribs again. "Hear me out, Liara. The universe can throw whatever it feels like at us. It can wallow in it's misery, attempting to drag us down with it - but I refuse to be dragged down and I won't let it do that to you either. At least, not if I have any say in it. In time, it will learn that it's efforts are futile and that it is only making us stronger in will. Many have tried to break me and have soon regretted it." She gingerly picked up one of the asari's hands and rested it over her sternum. "With you around, I... Feel..." She struggled for a moment, groping for the right words to express it all.

There was still that ever persistent disbelief that plagued the wretch.

"Be nice," Liara chuckled halfheartedly. "Just because we both said we were wretches growing up does not mean it is permissible to call me one." She stretched her fingers, rolling her eyes with a slight shake of her head when the soldier smirked. There was a thoughtfulness that swept up, then, as T'Soni helped supplement the word. "You feel invincible." She frowned. "But... Luce..." Her gaze fell to the missing arm. "You aren't."

"See the forest for its trees," Lucy blurted, pressing the hand in against her with urgency to get this out of her more competently. "Mom used to say that to me - say that I couldn't see the forest. She meant that I was too focused on the small details, that I couldn't understand clearly because I was too personally involved. Step outside for a moment. Look at me out of your lens - look at me how I do."

Instinct nearly crushed the hand in hers when she wanted to squeeze, and caught herself before doing so. She felt that stab of melancholy and pressed forward.

"Let me try this again. Even if I lose a tree, Liara, I am still the forest. It can cut one, two, three or four - it will not make me any less of a forest."

"And if all the trees are cut down?"

"Trees grow back. But more importantly, a tree needs roots to survive and thrive. That's where you come in. Strong roots help grow a strong tree, and - can you just understand me without further clarification yet? Just see the forest for its trees and... And are you laughing at me?" Lucy felt it before she'd seen it, and blinked incredulously when soon after, T'Soni indeed started laughing. Like a snowball effect, it had pulled Shepard's lips into a lopsided grin, even though she hadn't quite understood the chaos of emotions that had sparked now.

Lips were soon upon hers when Liara shot up into sitting to catch her, needy hands weaving into the soldier's sand-blonde hair. A favourite.

A favourite?

{I need an answer now. Can't you pick one now? Deliberate later.}

{It wouldn't quite be my favourite colour if I were to change my mind later, now would it?}

{Sate your pleasure for debate later too. Pick one.}

{Blonde, I suppose. Blonde like the sand at the beach we were at.}

"Wait..." Lucy broke the kiss and leaned back, brow arched as she combed the sly smile for answers. She narrowed her eyes. "Have... You been flirting with me all this time?"

Cheekily, Liara echoed words that once belonged to the soldier. "Incompetently. But yes."

"Why didn't you inform me sooner?" Curiosity asked in the back of her mind, among a host of other questions. She received answers in the form of lips quivering against hers, and the hands tangled in her hair had grown more urgent. She was slammed with another tidal wave of emotions, then, and she was drowning in them. She thrashed furiously to resurface and swim, to understand, but she was out of her depth. She hadn't quite understood it all - but she absorbed what she could. She had felt a measure of guilt and melancholy upon realizing that all these emotions...

Liara contained them.

"You've been protecting me, all this time."

Thoughts flowed tenderly in the meld, a host of memories flashing by within a scant few breaths of every single time the asari remembered restraining herself, agonizing over what to do or say. Doubt bled into the meld as T'Soni wondered if it was right of her to decide what she had, in all those moments. Shepard pressed harder, an urgency compelling her to at least attempt to do in order to convey what she wanted, rather than think about it.

"You've been nurturing me, all this time."

Lucy smirked smugly, and she could perfectly visualize a knee-jerk reaction of rolling eyes soon after.

"Told you strong roots grow a strong tree. See the forest, Liara. It's a fitting environment for two lone wolves to meet, isn't it?"

"We need to work on how you apply your idioms," the archaeologist chuckled gently.

"Mm hm."

It was too tempting to poke and prod, and there was an irresistible thought to tease about courage to admit who's right, but that knee-jerk reaction struck again. There was an alluring lure in the way their competitive spirits would feed and fuel each other, a never-ending cycle once started. Lucy cupped the asari's chin and broke the kiss as she tilted Liara's head back, pressing in feather-light to the throat. A pleased groan purred deep in the chest, and Shepard found it a peculiar sensation - and pleasantly strange - to be able to feel it inside hers too. She paid affectionate attention to the pulse that would race, then be subdued whenever T'Soni seemed to realize what was happening.

"What's wrong with what's happening, Liara?" Lucy inquired, curious. "What can I do so you're no longer disturbed by my circumstance?"

"Nothing," Liara sighed, but it sounded so weary and defeated. "Perhaps you can accept it, Luce, but I don't know if I will ever be able to accept what's happening to you."

Firm fingers jerked the asari's chin down, and Lucy narrowed her eyes sternly. "When I was training and rising through the ranks to attain N7, the instructor running the drills would do everything to break us mentally. He'd tell us every moment that we would never make it - there was no way we could. Many believed it, because he was N7, he would know if we could make it or not. Right? Wrong. What he was doing was echoing the voice we were telling ourselves already. We were responsible for breaking ourselves. I often asked myself if I was good enough. Was it impossible, improbable? Then I started to ask if I was really going to take that. I'll ask you the same: will you take that, Liara? Or will you fucking fight back?"

Broken free, Lucy rocked back to use momentum to hop up on her feet, reaching down to take T'Soni's hand to drag her up into standing. She twisted and pulled towards the ocean, feeling the remnants of panic bleed clearly through the meld over suspicion that she was going to throw the asari in it again. She couldn't help but smirk devilishly over the entertaining prospect, but she mustered the discipline to restrain herself.

"Why thank you so much for that, Luce," whispered Liara within her mind, every word drenched in sarcasm.

"There is something immediately more pressing. There will be time for that later."

Wryly, T'Soni grumbled. "I look forward to it."

Memories whirled about them the deeper they waded into the water, the insects and stars losing focus as they flickered in their fight to remain.

{Back then, I only had to worry about those buckets, or when rations were going to be skipped, or when we might be sleep deprived to discipline us for our 20-hour long scenarios.}

{That... That sounds...}

{Like a breeze, compared to what we are forced to deal with now. They never trained me for the problems I face now. This water...I feel like I am lost out there, and no amount of swimming will get me anywhere or do anything. No one will hear me if I scream out there. No one will know that the ripples that eventually reach this shore are because of me, drowning.}

"It's taken me time to realize it, but..." Lucy murmured, stopping until they were about hip deep before she turned to face the asari.

{Sorry, Dr. T'Soni. I didn't mean to unload on you like that. It won't happen again.}

{You don't need to apologize, Commander. I want you to. I want it to happen again. I want all of this to happen again more often. This sunrise, this beach, you exploring it all, the feelings and thoughts it invokes, even and especially if you unload like this. You are not lost, alone. It... I...}

"You were right, all this time," Shepard continued, a pleasant tenderness embracing her from the fond memory. "I was no longer lost, by that day, because you had already found me by then. You knew I was screaming, you listened to it. You saw the ripples and followed them, swum away from the shore to come into the ocean, no matter what perilous danger awaited you. You refused to let me drown - even when I had wronged you, you hadn't abandoned me to the sea. It's my turn to do the same for you."

"This is different," Liara protested, shaking her head as those eyes traversed miles away. A memory beat before Lucy's eyes, watching them through the asari's.

A memory of holding her amputated hand.

"Before you start, Luce: how would you feel if it was reversed? If you saw my hand in yours, like that?"

Fear coiled around the soldier's chest at the mere thought of it.

"So tell me, then, would you accept that? Would your philosophy apply here, so that you could still be okay with it all?"

Nothing that surfaced in Lucy's mind was making a compelling point in her favour, and she reluctantly conceded when she'd felt harsh words grate her ears.

"This isn't a competition, Luce."

"I-I'm not... I'm sorry, I didn't mean to..."

More memories drenched them, the ocean around them darkening to burgundy blood - the colour of asari blood - as it intertwined with currents of crimson. She'd felt that wretched agony snaking around her lungs as she'd continued to observe through Liara's eyes, how the asari numbly curled into a ball and held onto Sergeant Lowe's hand in a desperate bid to erase the feeling of warmth draining rapidly to cold clammy skin and stale fingers. Those touches - that betrayed the depths of emotions buried to the individual herself - were forever gone, the loving attention they paid were now naught but a fraught memory.

All this pain, this trauma. She couldn't eradicate it as painfully as the poisonous cooking - she couldn't eradicate it, period. It had to be felt, as she now felt, a demand for respect to feel this. She still didn't stop wishing she could take it away. It was agonizing to watch Liara falling apart in front of her, and the asari struggling to fucking fight back and remain strong.

"Not with this," it dawned. Lucy wished she'd been faster on the upkeep of it. She pulled the archaeologist in against her and wrapped her arm around the shuddering shoulders tightly, whispering in Liara's aural to hopefully remind how far they've come, echoing precious words once said to her. "Let's work together so that neither of us drowns. Or we can at least scream together."

That veneer of strength was cracking, the pieces of serenity falling apart like shattered glass. Crushing arms wound tightly around Lucy and held onto her for dear life, and she too had fallen apart when she had gotten a glimpse of the asari's motive for strength.

"I would never think less of you, or think that you are weak."

"You've been coddling me all this time, never letting me fight beside you," T'Soni grumbled. "What other explanation is there, except that you think I'm not strong?"

This needed to be rectified immediately. Regret was really kicking at Lucy now. "I apologize... I never wanted to feed insecurity, but to ensure security. It was just the best way to make sure you would remain safe - by never putting you in risky situations to begin with. You're precious to me. I'm..." She groped for the words again, and something seemed to dawn on the asari's end, bringing with it a new tidal wave of overpowering emotions with whatever she'd realized. Lucy tried to focus on the chaos, caught off guard by the urgency in the lips that sought to smother hers.

That terrifying feeling from before resurfaced, the one where instinct triggered her fight or flight, and she sure as hell ran as quickly as she could then.

"This is why you left me, back then?" Liara barked a small laugh in disbelief. She firmly clasped the soldier's jaw as she'd broken the kiss, and though there was the Phantom that dwelled within her eyes now, so too did they swell with the thing that kept it at bay. "Try again, Luce. Fix the mess you've made. You don't have to say it... But feel what you really wanted to say, then. You missed me. You're enamoured with me. You don't have to stop Saren right in this moment, shared between us."

"What am I trying again?" Lucy grumbled, hiding her face in the asari's neck. "Now look who could do with a more clarifying statement?"

{Liara... Thank you for giving meaning to my life. I pray someone will help you experience these strange feelings too, someday.}

Hope nudged her, gently encouraging and coaxing her to explore. She held her ground and went back to the point that the asari was avoiding herself.

"I would never think you're weak. You're the strongest person I've ever known, Liara."

"Lucy-"

"Please. You feel it from me, right? Let this feed and fuel you too. Once, you asked me how I move forward, despite the pain. I said I couldn't, that I was stuck, but I still try. It's a constant effort and always will be. It's just life." The soldier pressed her lips into Liara's shoulder, marvelling how she could feel a suit and skin at the same time. She tried not to be overly distracted by the fascinating capabilities of melding, holding on strong to her point as she echoed old words. "If you can't find that strength in you to try the same, then just borrow from me for a bit. Lean on me. I'll carry you forward until you feel like you're able to try. And if you still can't make it? That's fine. I'll keep carrying you."

{I don't know what you're telling yourself in your head, Dr. T'Soni, but you've got it in you. You can move forward. It might take some time, but I know you can do it. You're different than me.}

"You will move forward. It will take time, but I still know that you can do it. You're different than me, you're stronger than me. Your compassion is riveting, but your determination is the source of your power. Because of you, you have made me feel. Your determination willed it, compelled it, and refused to accept failure. And I'm learning now that it's okay to feel, no matter the kind of feeling - whether it be strange or sad."

Lucy rested her forehead against Liara's, smiling like the optimistic fool that she was.

"Once, I heard what you were calling me in your thoughts, in previous melds. Now I hear me with it instead."

Something happened in those blue orbs, that strange emotion they sometimes swam with was given expression here. It was more than what it started as: a wonder, a curiosity.

{...and as I explored my interest, it turned into the passion it is now. It flowed there naturally as the waves carried me, once I jumped into that sea. So, in lieu of that, I would debate that you have not forgotten, Commander. I would debate that you've always had that feeling. You've just had it on mute. It's time to unmute it, to listen to that feeling, that voice inside you. You'll learn even more when you do.}

That feeling. That terrifying feeling she was made to feel - reminded that she still could. Liara beamed a proud smile and kissed Lucy, pouring every ounce of that terrifying feeling into it.

Love.