I have a confession to make. I have been lying to you for all these years about the poem that is the namesake for this story. More specifically, I lied to you about one word in particular. The text of the entire poem reads:

All things pass

Love and mankind is grass.

(Emphasis added). When I originally published this story, I changed the "is" to "are" because I couldn't stand that the poem was grammatically incorrect. It is like nails on a chalkboard to me, and yet I love this stupid little poem because, like Shepard, I say it to remind myself that everything is temporary, especially the bad. "Ok, NQ," I hear you thinking, "Apart from your weird existentialism, why does any of this matter? You fixed the grammar, so what?" Well, here's the thing. As perhaps the number one Stevie Smith fan in the world, I am well aware that Stevie didn't make a grammatical mistake. There is no way she thought it was proper to use the singular "is" for the plural of "love and mankind." She was incredibly smart. We're talking the highest level of education available to a woman in that time period in that part of the world. If she had been allowed to go further in her education, you bet she would have. She edited books on history, religion, Latin, and philosophy for fun. Her list of friends was a staggering line-up of heavy hitting intellectuals. The use of "is" in the poem is clearly deliberate.

For years, I assumed that Stevie wrote the poem that way as an intentional middle-finger. That's very much in line with her personality. A sort of, "Screw you, you thought you knew how I was going to end this, but I am intentionally going to make you uncomfortable." And that's definitely still a possibility. But only within the last year did I have an epiphany – and it's because of this epiphany that I feel compelled to confess to my sacrilegious act of editorialism.

It occurred to me that I may have been reading the poem with the wrong inflection this whole time. This is Stevie's fault for not including a comma or semicolon where it should be, but as we've established, she was not above messing with her reader. She played especially fast and loose with punctuation as many poets do. But it seems likely that the second line should be read, "Love; and mankind is grass." Essentially, if you say it aloud to yourself, put a pause after the word love. Love becomes a command, and the whole poem changes. Instead of being a poem about letting things go, it becomes a reminder that the only thing we can do in life is love because all else is fleeting. This is a subtle, but powerful change. And honestly, knowing Stevie like I do, this was her intent all along.

The reason I mention all this is because, at least to me, this adds a whole new layer to this chapter and, by extension, the title of this story. Shepard will still use my incorrect version of the poem. Whether she does so because she intentionally corrected the grammar in her mind like I did, or because she is simply misremembering, I leave up to you. But she repeats the poem over and over to herself because she thinks it is telling her that love and everything else are meaningless in the grand scheme of things. That all things are temporary, so it is not worth fretting over them. But I now think the true meaning of the poem is the opposite. The truth is that love (in all its forms) is the only thing that matters, and it is imperative to cherish it. She's essentially lying to herself because she doesn't understand the meaning of the poem – and this is proven by the end when love is what ultimately wins out. The whole thing is the literal definition of irony, and you know I love a good literary gut-punch.

All Things Pass

"The asari is down," came Wrex's gruff voice over the radio. Shepard froze, giving the pirate caught in the sight of her sniper rifle enough time to duck behind cover before she could pull the trigger. As she lay on a ridge above the enemy camp, sniper rifle positioned to pick off anyone too stupid to not stay in cover, she felt her stomach suddenly go hollow and her throat tighten. The words kept rearranging themselves in her mind. Liara was down. Liara was hurt. Liara had been shot.

Her hesitation was only momentary however, and she said, "Give me your position, Wrex."

"We're close to the Mako, but there's no cover in-between. Our asses will be hanging out while we make a run for it. And I'll have to carry the asari if you want her to make it." There was just a hint of question in his voice, as if he wasn't sure that was a foregone conclusion.

Shepard swung her rifle towards the Mako and proceeded to search for any sign of the krogan. She spotted the top of his hump behind a crate about 20 meters from the vehicle. Several enemies were using the break in her firing to move in on their position. "You are not leaving her behind, Wrex," Shepard ordered. "Make a run for it. I'll cover you."

He grunted in response. "If I get killed, Shepard, I'll kick your ass from the grave."

Shepard continued to scan the area, picking off a few pirates close to the Mako. Then she spotted Wrex sprinting from the left with Liara in his arms. Even through the scope, Shepard couldn't see where Liara had been injured, and she didn't have time to ponder as the pirates quickly started moving in on her companions' position. Fueled by adrenaline, Shepard fired shot after shot at the enemy, aiming to penetrate shields and dispatch them as rapidly as possible.

She didn't dare to pause until she heard Wrex's voice in her ear again, "We're in the Mako, Shepard."

Watching as the pirates scattered back into cover, the commander let out her pent-up breath. "How is Dr. T'Soni? Where is she injured?"

"Just the leg, I think. Our friends set up some explosive traps that we didn't expect. The asari took some shrapnel."

Shepard wanted to demand more details, but knew that it wasn't the time. Instead, she said, "Time for payback. Take control of the Mako and tear them a new quad, Wrex."

"Can do, Shepard," he answered.

As the Mako made short work of the remaining pirates, Shepard inwardly beat herself up over her tactical blunder. Everything about this mission had gone bad from the start. She'd allowed herself to be lured into an abandoned mine by the threat of nuclear payloads, only to be jumped by Elanos Haliat, the supposed mastermind behind the Skyllian Blitz. Disarming the bombs had been simple, but doing that and getting back out of the mine had been time consuming. It was plenty of time for a horde of pirates to surround the Mako, thereby blocking their escape. They had come out of the mine atop a ridge overlooking where the Mako was surrounded. Unfortunately, neither Wrex nor Liara were proficient with long-range weapons, and as good as Shepard was, she didn't think she could take them all out before the enemy marched up the hill to overwhelm them.

Shepard's plan had been to send Wrex and Liara down the hill while she harried the enemy from long-range. The two of them would sneak back onto the Mako while the enemy was focused on Shepard and then use the extra firepower to turn the tide. But the Commander hadn't accounted for traps along the enemy perimeter. It was sloppy and stupid of her, and now Liara was paying the price for her mistake.

When Wrex had finished clearing out the remaining pirates and picked Shepard up in the Mako, the commander found Liara lying in the back of the vehicle, a grimace of pain on her face. Shepard knelt down beside her to examine her injured right leg. Several shards of metal pierced through the armor just below the knee. There was purple blood splashed all over the armor and pooling on the floor of the Mako.

"Did you already apply medi-gel?" she asked.

Liara nodded, the color drained from her face.

Calling up to the driver's seat, Shepard said, "Wrex, call the Normandy and tell them to meet us at the rendezvous point. Tell Joker that we'll need the medbay ready."

He grunted his understanding and the Mako lurched forward. Turning her attention back to Liara, she tried to sound reassuring as she said, "Dr. Chakwas will patch you up just fine. Don't worry."

Again, Liara nodded, but her face was a mask of pain. Shepard felt something twisting in her chest, a sense of helplessness filling her. Reaching out and gripping Liara's right hand with both of hers, Shepard tried to smile. Liara did manage to smile back, but it seemed then that she was the one doing the comforting.

Back aboard the Normandy, Dr. Chakwas was ready to meet them and took control of the situation. Shepard hung back, not wanting to interfere, but she made sure to follow to the medbay and wait outside the doors. Wrex also followed and stood beside the commander. She noticed a large chunk of the armor on his back was missing, but the flesh beneath the armor looked fine.

Shepard asked, "What exactly happened out there, Wrex?"

His red eyes flicked from the medbay to her, and he shrugged. "It was bad luck, Shepard. We were making our way just fine when T'Soni stepped on some kind of trigger. I just heard the click, then a beeping, and realized that something was about to explode. I pushed the asari out of the way, but the blast still caught her in the leg. Ripped a hole in my back, but I pulled most of the shrapnel out and waited for the skin to regenerate. Asari don't do that."

Shepard gaped at him, genuinely shocked. Although she and Wrex had developed a sort of unspoken bond, he hadn't seemed attached to anyone else aboard the ship. Half the time, Shepard wasn't even sure he noticed them. "You saved Liara?" she asked.

Wrex snorted and raised his head. "Don't think much of it. It would have looked bad if the asari got torn to shreds while I walked away just fine. No one is going to say I let an asari take a bomb for me."

Shepard whispered, "Thanks, Wrex." He just grunted and turned towards the elevator without another word.

Shepard waited outside the medbay anxiously. She knew it would take some time for Dr. Chakwas to remove the shrapnel and treat the wound, but she couldn't bring herself to leave. She had plenty of time to change out of her armor and return, but she didn't budge. Shepard told herself it would be fine. They were fighting people all the time; their lives were in constant danger. Casualties happened and Wrex had seen to it that the situation had not ended in disaster. They'd gotten Liara back quickly and she was in good hands.

But guilt ate away at Shepard. If she had even considered that there might be traps, things could have been different. And it tore her up to think that she was the reason Liara had suffered. Would Liara ever trust her again? It was one of the things she liked best about their relationship, that feeling of trust. Shepard worried that she had made a mistake allowing Liara to be put into such a dangerous situation in the first place. She wasn't a soldier after all. Kaidan had been not-so-subtlety hinting for weeks that Shepard was erring by putting Liara into combat situations. He reminded her often that Liara wasn't a part of their world and hadn't received the type of training they had. But Liara was a powerful biotic, and her skills were an asset that the tactician in her simply could not ignore. But now Shepard feared that Liara would reach the same conclusion as Kaidan, and resent the commander for her selfishness and poor judgment. Shepard didn't want things to change between them.

When Dr. Chakwas finally appeared, Shepard hastily asked, "How is she?"

"She'll be fine," the gray-haired doctor said. "The armor absorbed most of the shrapnel and her barriers slowed the speed of impact. Blood loss was minimal. She'll be back on her feet in no time."

Inwardly, Shepard sighed with relief. Outwardly, she asked, "Is she awake?"

"She's resting now." Shepard shifted awkwardly on the balls of her feet, not sure whether she should leave or stay and wait. Dr. Chakwas seemed to study the commander for a moment before saying with a small smile, "I don't think I've ever seen you this anxious before, Commander. You can go in and sit and wait if you'd like."

Chakwas was right; Shepard couldn't remember being this anxious before in relation to a fairly minor injury. But she told herself that this was different because Liara wasn't a soldier and hadn't signed up for this sort of thing. "Ah... thanks, Doctor," Shepard replied, ducking her head in gratitude and slipping past the woman into the medbay. Near the back of the room, Liara was lying on one of the examination tables. Her armor had been stripped off so that she wore only the plain, black jumpsuit that was standard Alliance issue under-armor. Dr. Chakwas had cut the cloth just above the right knee so that a blue, bandaged leg showed. Shepard felt a strange pang in her chest, which she quickly tried to suppress. Crossing the room, she took a seat on the examination table next to Liara and waited. She also noticed that Chakwas had suddenly disappeared.

Now that things were calm and Liara was in no danger, Shepard studied the asari's pale blue face. Her features were extremely human, down to the freckles that dotted her cheeks, although her skin tone and crest were distinctly alien. But her kindness, her smarts, her good sense of humor, those were not alien. And for all their differences, Liara seemed to understand Shepard in ways that other people did not. She never seemed interested in Shepard for what she was capable of doing. Most people liked Shepard either for the things she had already done or the things they hoped she would do for them. But not Liara. She had never asked for anything more than Shepard's friendship.

With Liara, Shepard felt free of the usual expectations. The asari didn't seem to care that she was N7 or a spectre. Instead, she seemed more interested in their morning talks or helping Shepard figure out how to stop Saren. Liara's genuineness had allowed Shepard to be open in return. She'd told Liara things she hadn't told anyone else before and allowed her to see that she wasn't always as in control as she liked to pretend.

Yet, their growing bond had obscured what had been obvious from the beginning: Liara wasn't like Shepard. Their worlds were completely different, and Liara hadn't chosen this life. It had been thrust upon her by the decisions her mother had made. Shepard had allowed herself to drag Liara farther across the line of struggle and violence. She knew that she had that effect on people, the ability to pull them along with her through sheer force of will. And she'd unwittingly done it to Liara too. She'd taken a woman who had been perfectly happy with a life of quiet academia and had turned her into yet another soldier under her command.

The thing that gripped Shepard's heart with an icy hand in that very moment was the fear that Liara would wake up and realize it too. That the shock of being wounded in battle would make her realize how insane it was for her to sign up to fight in Shepard's war, and she would opt to leave. Now that Benezia was gone, Saren's interest in Liara might have dissipated. Liara could easily decide that this fight no longer concerned her, and she was better off outside of Shepard's dangerous influence.

Although it wouldn't surprise Shepard, she knew that it would hurt her. She was used to saying goodbye to people. Soldiers got reassigned and moved around all the time. N7s, especially, never stayed in one place for too long. But for some reason, the thought of saying goodbye to Liara hurt her in a way she never would have expected.

All at once, it dawned on Shepard what was happening and she jumped to her feet, the hair on the back of her neck standing on end and her eyes wide. She stared at Liara and put the palms of her hands against her head as if she could somehow slow down her racing thoughts. She realized with horror that she had developed feelings for Liara. Suddenly, aspects of her feelings towards the asari came into focus in a new light. Her relationship with Liara felt different than it did with anyone else because it was different. At least to Shepard. That unexplainable draw she felt towards Liara suddenly made sense.

No, no, no, she thought. That can't be right. That's not what's happening. Her heart pounded in her chest as her body urged her to run away from the situation. Shepard couldn't have those sorts of feelings for someone under her command. It was dangerous. It was against the rules. And it would only lead to trouble. Besides, Shepard wasn't the type of person Liara would fall for. She deserved some equally smart doctor who didn't risk her life on a daily basis. Shepard just needed to bury those feelings somewhere else and wait for enough time to pass.

Her mind was in a full-blown panic as she tried to figure out how to combat the thoughts in her own head. As she tried to clear her mind, two lines of poetry wormed their way to the front, resounding over and over until she finally spoke them out loud. "All things pass; love and mankind are grass." Old words, centuries old, that called out to her in the midst of feeling completely overwhelmed. It wasn't the first time. The poem always seemed to come to her when she needed to push past the present. Whenever she needed the reminder that everything was temporary in the end and therefore everything could be endured. She wanted to laugh at the silliness of it, but instead she found herself repeating it like a mantra, muttering it with increasing conviction as if she could ward off her feelings with the sheer force of the statement. "All things pass; love and mankind are grass... All things pass; love and mankind are grass... All things pass..."

Turning towards the door, Shepard was determined to stop whatever was happening before it got out of control. She would put some respectful distance between herself and Liara and focus on the mission. She had just taken a step towards the exit when a voice behind her stopped her. "Shepard?"

She looked back at Liara, who was just opening her eyes and raising herself up on her elbows. The asari looked down at her bandaged leg and winced. Shepard didn't want Liara to pick up on her panic, so she used all of her self-control to suppress everything she had been feeling and calmly said, "How are you feeling?"

Liara reached out and placed a hand gingerly on her injured leg. "As Wrex might have put it, I feel like I took one to the quad."

In spite of herself, Shepard found herself chuckling. "Always the comedian."

"I try," Liara answered with a small grin.

Not sure what else she should say, Shepard stumbled, "Uh, Dr. Chakwas said you'll be fine in a couple of days. Wrex told me what happened. I'm sorry I put you in that situation. I should have thought about traps. It's my fault."

Liara looked at the commander with surprise and shook her head. "It is not your fault, Shepard. Sometimes things happen. I am honestly surprised it took us this long to encounter some bad luck."

Shepard didn't know what to say. Liara didn't seem at all phased by the injury or like she was reconsidering her place aboard the Normandy. A part of her felt relieved and delighted. They didn't have to say goodbye just yet. Liara still liked and trusted her enough to stay. But another part of Shepard was screaming internally. Now that she knew what these feelings towards Liara were, how was she supposed to simply ignore them? Was she just delaying heartache further down the road?

All things pass; love and mankind are grass.

Liara looked her up and down curiously and asked, "How long was I out? You are still in your armor."

Feeling the heat rise in her face, the commander looked away quickly and said, "You weren't out too long. I just wanted to make sure you were ok."

Liara smiled. "Thank you, Shepard."

Rocking anxiously on her feet and shrugging, Shepard said, "Well, I should let you rest. I don't know where Dr. Chakwas went. I'll try to find her."

Beating a hasty retreat, the dark-haired woman exited the medbay in search of the doctor. After she had ducked around the corner and entered the elevator, Shepard ran her fingers through her hair and took a deep breath. Her blood was pounding in her ears, drowning out all other sound. Whatever these feelings were, they had to be suppressed. Liara was part of the crew. She was just one amongst the many lives under Shepard's command and care. Shepard could not treat her differently or be distracted by a fantasy that could never come to pass.

The commander took in deep breaths and felt her heart slow back down to a steady rhythm. It would all be fine. Although the feelings had snuck up and surprised her, she had identified them now and could weed them out before they truly took root. She told herself that she was not the type of person to be ruled by her emotions, and therefore this momentary lapse in judgment was harmless. As she stepped off the elevator she felt fully in control once more.

All things pass; love and mankind are grass.