They'd been debating for hours and the crimped posture of the people sitting across the conference table said they'd be here longer. Her own delegation knew they had the Trilexi over a barrel. They needed the medicine her people could provide and her people needed their natural resources; it was only a matter of time. Her people had it, the Trilexi clan didn't.
The shifting was quicker now. So fast.
It might have been overcast, but the sun couldn't shine brighter than the first sight of Davea's golden eyes, her lips smiling wide as she hops and waves on the deck outside his ship. The ache of months of backbreaking work evaporates and his steps are light and quick down the gang toward her until she's finally in his arms. He'd never felt something as sweet as the softness he enfolded.
Over and over, again and again.
She'd sung her heart out to the crowd, hoping for a big break. She turns and gives a call out to her backup singer who crooned the lyrics just right; only to turn and see that the local drunk has climbed the stage and is dancing wildly right next to her. There were no bouncers in the park, no security and he's much bigger than she was, so she surprises even herself when she slaps him soundly.
The scenes never slowed and never stopped, even when she willed it to. Even when she tried to go to her safe place, a new place would invade her mind.
Running, swift as the wind, her teammates deftly preventing the other team from touching her. The goal line was only meters away! She turns her head to look at them while they chase her, faces screwed in fruitless concentration. She laughs and thinks of the crowd cheering, of being hoisted on shoulders. Then she trips.
She wasn't watching these moments, she was the subject of them. She was, somehow, each and every one of them. There were so many...
The gale is raging, one of the equipment bay doors outside the shelter slamming and slamming and slamming into its frame. The bottle he reaches for is empty and he throws it into a corner of the dilapidated shelter, adding the tinkle of shattering glass to the din. There was no way out of this shithole, not for days, and he needs a fix like mad. The rest of the refugees squat in corners, beady eyes watching him like feral animals. He's tired of them watching. He's tired of being hungry. He's tired of it all. When one of the irritating rats stands up with anger in his eyes, the next thing he grabs from the table is a knife.
She wanted to scream for them to run. It was too much. It was too much. Then came a new voice, undercutting the barrage.
"Father, wake up. Mother is scared."
It was dark and quiet except for the pulsing hum of engines, but hands grip at her clothing where she lay, shaking her violently. A voice from somewhere keeps screaming a name. She rises quickly, shoving her attacker backward to leap from the hard cot. A weapon comes easily to her hand and she lifts it to fire.
The voice screamed "Father!" as the woman before her lifted suddenly glowing hands. Her breath was coming fast and blood pounded in her ears.
"Shepard, stop!" The woman cried.
"Don't move!" she heard herself shout, then fell silent in shock as she, for the first time, recognized her own words. "Don't. Move," she repeated firmly again after a moment.
She looked around for other attackers and seeing none was satisfied that the woman had stopped moving and speaking both, her hands slowly rising into a pose of submission. She struggled to make sense of anything.
"Where am I?" she asked finally.
The woman blinked and answered in a calming voice. "You're on a freighter called the Egeon. We're traveling to the Omega Nebula."
The words meant nothing to her and the woman seemed to see her hesitation. "Do you know who you are?" she asked, confused.
Her grip on the pistol shifted uncertainly. She should know the answer.
"You're Shepard," she explained as if to a child. Her next words echoed along with the same voice that woke her from the chaos of her dreams.
"Jordan Shepard," they said together, and the world suddenly snapped back into a proper form, but not the one she knew before.
"Are you alright?" Liara asked in a gentle voice.
Shepard looked around herself, then seemed to come to a decision and holstered her Carnifex. Her eyes, which had been large and round before, grew tender and concerned.
"You were screaming," Liara said with a touch of desperation. "You wouldn't wake up."
"Dreams," Shepard said distractedly. "Bad dream."
The muscles so tightly tensed in her core relaxed. Her bondmate hadn't had one of those dreams for a long time, but she'd also never reacted so badly to them.
"What was it about?" she pressed.
"Take your pick," she murmured.
Liara just tilted her head and narrowed her eyes in response.
"I don't need to keep talking about them, okay?" Shepard said with a look just short of apologetic. "No matter how much I work on myself, they're never going to go away. I'm good with it."
After a pause to consider whether or not she should argue that a weapon had just been pointed at her, Liara slowly approached and stopped within a more intimate conversation range. Nevertheless, Shepard looked wary.
"It's just an exercise," she explained rationally. "I'm sorry if I seem clinical."
Shepard nodded, relieved.
Liara lifted a hand to caress her face. "I won't ask anymore, but I would like for you to check in with me from time to time."
The human covered Liara's hand with her own. "I will," she whispered, the warm breath of her words caressing her wrist in contrast to the unnatural coolness of her skin. Her eyes flicked toward the front of the freighter. "What's our ETA?"
Liara strode to the cockpit, then called over her shoulder, "Almost there. 9 minutes."
Shepard had picked up Athena by the time she returned and the little one was yawning and stretching, but quiet in her arms.
"She's hardly cried at all. How is she?" she asked suggestively.
"Good," her bondmate replied, looking down into the child's eyes. "Really good." Shepard lifted her into the air, letting her drop just enough to rub noses with her before lifting her again; then repeating the act several times. Athena's giggles grew wild and Liara heard Shepard chuckle before pulling her back to her chest, matching Liara's growing smile with one of her own. "I'm no expert but she doesn't seem affected by the infection at all. Other than being able to talk with me, of course."
"That's a relief," Liara breathed. "Has she said anything else of note?"
"Just that I'm boring and she misses you," Jordan said with a crooked grin before walking toward her. She held Athena close enough that they could all hug before sliding her left hand from the base of Liara's crest down to the small of her back.
The touch was inviting, and as all questions about Shepard's state of mind would be neatly answered with a meld, Liara tentatively reached out with her feelings to ask for one. She was pleasantly surprised to be admitted considering recent refusals. There was an expectation of lingering anxiety and fear after such a traumatic dream, but she found no hint of the negativity that had woken them both from sleep. She was calm, confident and loving, instead. Liara couldn't hide her concerns in the meld and expected that to irritate her, to dampen the mood.
She felt Shepard take notice, felt her sudden introspection; a slight withdrawal to look inside herself for anything that might be of worry to Liara and she felt it come up empty. Instead of irritation, understanding and reassurance enfolded her and Athena both; telling her without words that things were going to be okay so long as they were together. It was a balm like no other and Liara was swept up in it, relaxing into a treasured, unexpected symmetry. Whatever process had been started by the infection, it appeared to be complete.
"Tell me about the Convergence," Liara finally said aloud while they clung to one another in the dark open space of the hold.
Liara felt Shepard nod slightly before she answered. "I see the problem very clearly, now," she whispered. "And I understand why they don't think it can be solved."
She opened her eyes questioningly and looked into Shepard's, which were green and steady.
"It's the same reason we've repeatedly gone to war over AI and the same reason all those people out there with prosthetics are having their lives ruined as we speak," she said, two fingers gently stroking Athena's crest. "It's fear of anything different," she intoned, "And the Convergence is different. Very different."
"They don't see themselves as Asari, Human, or Turian anymore," she added. "They believe they're a new species and unlike the Geth they won't wait to be abused for their differences while asking politely for understanding. They are very protective of each other. Every single person matters."
She'd been about to protest the idea that they were a species at all. For a species to exist they needed to be able to reproduce, were the words coming to her lips, but they died before they left them. They could reproduce; just not in the usual fashion. They had reproduced... by infecting her daughter without her permission. Anger filled her. The act was akin to rape in her mind.
Shepard felt that coil of rejection through the bond and spoke again. "Aethyta apologizes for what she did. She knows you'll hate her for the rest of her life and she did it anyway. It's why they provided the cure."
"But why couldn't she have just told me !" Liara exclaimed through gritted teeth.
Shepard smiled ruefully. "She tried. We pretty soundly rejected her, if you recall."
Liara shook her head stubbornly. "She said you couldn't understand unless you shared with her."
"And she was mostly right," she replied. "There's a lot to this. They needed our help, you see, but we were an unknown quantity. Refusing to share means that no matter our history, we could potentially turn on them. They decided they couldn't take that risk."
In response to the argumentative look no doubt forming on her face Shepard continued. "We could have just used the cure and been done with it," she explained. "Athena learned a lot from Aethytha through the share, but nothing harmful. It's just data that she has, like any database on the net; she doesn't know what any of it means yet. If we had cured her, she would go on with her life and they would assume we'd sided against them. That outcome means they haven't shown us their hand or given us any harmful intel. The other option…" she sounded out, waiting for any rebuttal.
"Go ahead," Liara said coldly.
"Is to force me to share with my own daughter because she guesses, correctly, that you and I won't be able to stand not knowing why."
She began to swear like an ignorant Asari stripper, and not even Shepard's worldly experience could keep the amused expression from her face.
"And what's to stop us from going to the authorities right now?" Liara declared, face hot.
"Because," she sighed expressively, "I think they're right, that's what."
Liara hissed, "You think they were right to infect our daughter?"
"I think they're right about how we as a galaxy would handle what they've become. They needed someplace to go, somewhere they could be safe, but that meant resources they didn't have at the time. While they were working their asses off trying to keep the peace between the races after the war they worked on that, too." Shepard snickered softly to herself. "They were almost ready."
Liara blinked, beginning to feel a step behind. "But why did they need you to share? What do they want?" she asked, but just a moment after, the freighter came out of the relay into Omega space. Normally they'd just FTL to the station in the asteroid belt, but as they both looked over the pilot's chairs and through the forward glass, there was something huge suspended between Omega and them. It was the Citadel.
She glanced at Shepard to see what her reaction might be, but the woman simply stood there with a tranquil expression before turning to meet her eyes.
"They need my help," she replied, "And.. go ahead and give her the cure."
At her hesitation she explained. "You're right, Liara. I don't really know what's going to happen so let's not take any more chances."