40 – The Scholar of Ilos
The morning after. It is brutal and it is bright as Aria's penthouse has a skylight in the master bed. And through which window yonder light breaks with retina-searing glow.
I turn over and burrow under the sheets. I can feel that my position is odd, as I think I'm about half way down the bed. I burrow under a bit further, like a thresher maw in the sand, the ripples visible on top. I burrow until I hit something warm and soft.
It's Aria, or at least the torso of her that exists underneath the sheets. I can tell it's her body from the raised freckle cluster near her belly button in the shape of the Big Dipper, but interrupted by the faint scar of a stiletto knife puncture mark the abdomen. Nearly 700 years old is that street-war wound, but the body doesn't forget so easily. Her stomach is partially bare, her shirt having ridden up in the night. The bottom half of her seems equally clothed.
As am I. In fact, one might say I'm overdressed for bed as I still have combats and thick socks on. I kick off the boots over the end of the bed, and pull my feet up.
I try to pull the muddy fragments of last night together.
There was dancing. A lot of drinking. Minor retching. An ill-advised skycab ride with a bottle of complimentary mouthwash. Then, a light spot of breaking and entering.
There she was, imperious and resplendent as ever before.
Things were said. Embraces were had. Apologies were uttered at gunpoint.
I think there might have been more retching. More drinking. Maybe weeping – hopefully at a movie. Missed calls from crew – I think my omni tool might be in the toilet downstairs.
And there was cuddling. That supernumerary Asari was sent away at some point before the weeping and the cuddling.
I think my headache would be alleviated with a solid Nova to the cranium; stomach so twisted that any movement may result in a swift exit to the facilities.
Now I am curled up in a ball, under the sheets and at Aria's side cowering from the daylight like a faithful cur. The room light has dimmed through the veil of the sheets, but it's bright enough to turn me to dust.
I wrap my arm around her waist and pull myself in closer. My arm wrapped around tightly, my head on her stomach and lips resting casually on her skin.
She stirs.
Her hand now at my back, pressing me inwards. My body eases. This is where I want to be.
In the past week I have been one Shepard only. I have had one hat to wear, one flag to fly, and my Commander stripes left at the threshold of Aria's apartment.
I feel at ease with shedding this second skin. I would need to think back to my days in N-School where I was of singular purpose with no buffer space to be anything else other than the best N7 candidate I could be.
As insufferable as it sounds, I've really tried to be the best girlfriend I could be.
I've tried to be the kind of girlfriend that attempts to cook from scratch (and failed, dramatically and humorously). I've tried to use all of my feminine power to get us to stay in for the evening together so I can selfishly remain in this bubble of bliss (and I've succeeded).
It hasn't been this way with us before. We've fought many times, and made up the same amount: - mostly the make-up sex has been worth such strife, but it's never felt secure. Not until now.
And Aria… she is gentler, somehow. Her biting wit remains intact, her brutal view of the world remains unenlightened, but she is tactile and flattering; generous with her time and her emotion. She has truly felt like my girlfriend, rather than a lover.
I have been with her in her apartment every night and most of the days. The times I have gone home it's been at my reluctant choosing. Although she'd said nothing, I thought we were ready for some space (for everybody needs space) but the space led to an ache that even the best grilled cheese couldn't fill.
"You got it bad," Garrus remarks, passing me another beer from the chiller under the bar before rejoining on the sofa in the entertainment room.
Maybe it was my sigh that triggered his comment, maybe the wistful expression, maybe checking the omni-tool just in case.
"Yeah, and what about you," I say "The second Tali tells you she's packing up her soldering iron for the night, you down your beer, and you're in the elevator scrolling through rom-vids and picking up takeout before she asks."
"I wouldn't ditch a friend," Garrus says. "Fine, I would ditch a friend, but not you. Not as abruptly, anyway."
"We didn't think this would be us," I murmur, casting an eye over the long line of brown glass bottles that we've emptied so far tonight. "Not back in Doctor Michel's Med Clinic: a young hotshot and a tearaway rebel."
He grins and turns his attention from the Biotiball game on TV. "Which one was which?"
"I think it's obvious, don't you," I laugh, pushing my hair back. "But here we are: enjoying the last bliss, and dare I say, love."
"I might dare say 'love' – but I can scarcely believe that's you do. That's worthy of a breaking segment on Westerlund News."
"That's not fair," I protest, hitting mute on the TV to quell the raucous crowd. "I've loved. Lots of times. There was my first girlfriend. You can't get away with that. And believe it or not, but when I was an Ensign I was in a secret relationship with the ship's comms officer. She was five years older than me, y'know."
"I bet everybody knew," Garrus scoffs, swigging his beer. "You can't hide goddamn anything, Shepard. You can't lie worth a damn."
"Nobody knew," I mutter to myself. "And it was good, no drama. Only broke up because we were posted opposite sides of galactic space."
"Yeah, they definitely knew," he laughs.
"And I loved her. Told her so. So, I'm full of love, buddy."
"And Liara," he says abruptly, like he dared himself to say the words.
"Yeah," I say quietly, the joy sucked out of the movement as if oxygen escaping through a tear in the hull.
"I listened to you, watched you – both of you – for as long. I know there was love there," Garrus says, getting up and selecting a new beer for himself only. I'm still working on half a bottle.
"Yeah."
"Liara's as easy to read as you. Her—"
"I said yes Garrus," I snap as I flip the volume back on the TV just as the Sorcerers score. The crowd noise fills the space of the entertainment room, but not the sudden canyon between Vakarian and I.
"You know she hasn't left the ship," he says. "Not really. Apart from the other night when we could drag her away."
"No," I say, accompanied by a vigorous shake of the head. "No, she definitely was. She's staying at a hotel… on Shalta."
"Nope."
I don't know why he's telling me this. It isn't often that Garrus gets under my skin, but he sure knows how to.
"She's lonely… Tali thinks. I think so too."
"She's a workaholic, not lonely. It's her choice."
The canyon widens. We both concentrate on the biotiball rout in front of us so we don't need to look at each other.
And it's Garrus' omni-tool that goes off first, before the full-time buzzer.
"That Tali?" I ask, like the past five minutes has been wiped out by the sound of the buzzer.
"She's hungry for that noodle place down the street," he says with a smile. "You know Tali when she's hungry."
"Then you best serve," I say with a tight smile, jumping out to show him out.
"Thanks for inviting me over, Shepard," he says.
"Well I really needed to get rid of those beers, so thanks for helping me out."
With the front door wide open, Garrus is half-in and half-out when he turns back around.
"Shepard. I didn't mean that you weren't capable of love," Garrus says, his eyes straying away from mine. "I know that's not true."
"Thanks bud," I smile, a hand slap to his shoulder – but his serious expression does not fade.
"I meant that she wasn't," he says pointedly, looking me dead in the eye.
Now, he leaves.
It eats at me.
Not his parting shot. I know what 'she' was referring to, and it couldn't bother me less because I know that it's varrenshit and he doesn't know a damn thing.
That comment, his last one - I'm not even thinking about that.
It's the lonely Liara comment. It's the thought that we're all here indulging in our whims and wants before the reckoning, and she is death-scrolling on that ship.
I thought things were a little better between Liara and I in Purgatory. A little easier, like the pain in my ribs is lessening and my lungs can properly inflate. The tolerance has improved and I can exist in her orbit. I think.
So, I invited Liara over.
It has taken me some time to invite her over to the apartment. Long enough for it to look bad. Long enough for everyone else – from Garrus to James to everyone in between - to have scoped out my new digs first. Long enough for Aria and I to settle into a pattern of co-Citadel living.
The prospect of spending an evening together is as stressful and hazardous as navigating the wreckage of Reaper: bracing for the assault and the paranoia that you may be slowly indoctrinated.
I did, however, a very wise thing and neglected to let Aria know about my company coming. Knowing her, she'd turn up after half an hour with some brilliant, devious scheme to end the night prematurely (to do the obvious and lash Liara around the apartment until she leaves limping would only meet with my intense displeasure and give rise to another fight about the younger Asari) and then fuck me until assured of my fidelity to her.
Not an awful series of events from my perspective; but not conducive to any attempt to mend Liara and I's working relationship.
It's been tense having Liara back, but there's no galaxy in which it isn't a net good for the war effort. She's performing exceptionally well in all respects: ground team, intelligence, research, her own work and maintaining a positive professional veneer with me.
But I know she's going to burn out somewhere. If I can take the pressure off the challenge of us working together with such a fractured relationship by trying to build a friendship, then an evening together is as good a start as any.
Unfortunately, she walks through the door not five minutes after I've been informed that it's going to take another week for repairs.
Another week sitting here when I want to charge. Being grounded while the enemy advances, more planets fall and millions on Earth are dying is incredibly frustrating.
I try to cover the mood with a smile and do my utmost to welcome her.
I give her the tour that I've done so often now, I have set speeches for points of interest around the apartment. My routine is so practiced, it's becoming evident that it is an act.
It's while I'm demonstrating the fire in the den area, and directing her attention to the new shelving I put up that she catches my arm mid-flow.
"Are you all right, Shepard? You seem a bit distracted."
"I'm fine," I say quickly, trying to move on to escape my emotions catching up with me. "So, over here-"
"Shepard," she insists. "Really. I don't need a tour. I need you to talk to me."
"It's nothing Liara," I say irritably, leaning over the poker table, the agitation getting the best of me.
"Are you-"
"I don't want to be giving you this tour either," I snap. "I want to get going. I want this done. I want the Crucible finished. I want the Normandy fixed and out of dock and I want to be hitting Cerberus where they live," I explode, punctuating with a fist slam on the table, "instead of waiting around staring at these walls."
She nods. "I feel that way as well."
"Another week!" I exclaim. "Another week of nothing."
"I know, I heard," Liara empathises, head tilted to the side.
"And what if the Illusive Man knows we're coming? And he-"
"There's a reason Admiral Hackett put you on shore leave," she cuts in. "Reports told me that much. Joker told me he's supposed to be watching out for you. That your stress levels are frighteningly high."
"Stress is nothing compared to a Reaper laser. Or getting rounded up and thrown in the camps for 'processing'," I retort. "There's human beings turning into husks, and asari into banshee…"
"Nothing compares to that," Liara says sternly. "That doesn't mean everything has to compare to that."
"Fine. But I don't need to knocking back drinks the week after seeing the Reaper factory of nightmares."
"Yes. Especially now. You need a rest before you break completely," she warns me. "You're exhausted and if you don't recharge – you're gambling with everyone's lives."
I purse my lips. She would appeal to my innate obligation to my crew – my family.
"I want it done," I mutter, unable to un-spool the tension within.
"We all want this to be over – but when we're ready. When we've got our best shot to give," Liara says logically. "When we're at our best."
"Yeah," I say shortly, letting a harsh breath out.
Liara shifts her stance suddenly from confrontation to happy neutral.
"Have a drink with me," she insists. "In fact, let's go out."
"I don't really feel like being around other people right now," I mutter, the anger still residing within.
"Do you feel like being around me?" Liara asks hesitantly.
God, I barely know how to answer that.
Instead of trying, I give her a curt nod. She smiles with demonstrable relief.
"Good. OK. I'll get the wine, shall I?" she says.
Liara looks over her shoulder, inviting me to follow her though to the TV lounge. I take a fraction longer to move than I should.
Though she's not trying to be, there's something inherently seductive about Liara's simple grace. I know she doesn't think herself as possessing the typical elegance of her people, but I do.
I follow her through, feeling like a lumbering beast in her wake.
She selects a bottle of wine from behind the bar and uncorks.
"I hope Anderson didn't expect his vintage collection to still be here when the war is over," Liara chuckles, handing the first glass to me.
I couldn't honestly tell you if this was vintage or well-aged or full-bodied or what kind of nose it has.
I know that Liara can, from the way she inhales the aroma and sips delicately with an approving nod. I'm betting that was part of her well-rounded education from Benezia, her boarding school, her university and her doctorate.
It's fine, though, because I can tell you the specifications of any weapon you care to mention, in all their iterations and revisions, from my Navy training.
I know who's responsible for my education.
We retire to the sofa, drinking in the quiet of this over-large apartment. Everything seems bigger when there's no noise to fill it. The less noise there is, the more likely it seems that this is all going to go horribly wrong.
Liara's always been content with silence, but not tonight.
"There's something else bothering you, isn't there?" she asks abruptly.
No point in hiding it. Not from her. She'll needle me until I give, or just pluck the answer from her Broker resources.
"I got a call. From my mother."
"How is she?"
"She's fine. She's proud. She's fighting."
"And what about your father?"
"She conveniently forgot to mention him," I say tightly. "As far as I know he's still on Earth."
"A farm, was it?" she asks carefully. The only knowledge she has of my father is from when she was in my head. It'd be easy to mistake in the haze of the meld.
"A ranch. Has delusions of a time long past. But it's isolated and self-sustaining with no one around for acres. Not any QEC's nearby, but probably not many Reapers," I say with little consolation.
"At least it's not a population centre."
Her hand is on my thigh. It's supposed to be a comforting hand.
"Don't know why I'm mad at her. I haven't spoken to him in... years," I confess. "Don't know how many. He hasn't spoken to me either. I think for him I died over Alchera in the crash and never came back."
She looks down, now inadvertently staring at her hand on my knee, the slip of intimate contact. She retracts her hand carefully. I think she whispers an apology from the shape of her lips, but no sound reaches my ears.
She reaches for her wine, taking a drink as she looks away. Gathering herself possibly.
"I don't want to talk about him anymore. I think unwinding is what I need," I admit, head lolling back on the sofa.
"We could watch a vid," she suggests brightly, switching her mood with false ease.
"Tali's already made me watch Fleet and Flotilla this week. I lied and told her I hadn't seen it," I confess with a small smile. "It made her happy."
She flicks through the catalogue of vids on her omni-tool
"Do you feel like another romance?" she asks, before biting her lip and squeezing her eyes shut.
Yes, Liara, that's exactly how that sounded.
"They're usually depressing," I say, unable to take my eyes from her, waiting for the visage to crack.
"If it didn't hurt, it wouldn't be worth the joy of the ending," she responds evenly, concentrating too hard on the series of vids flicking before her.
"They're not all happy endings," I murmur.
"I know," she says quietly. "OK - so, what do you feel like?"
"Definitely not action," I shake my head. "No war. No biography. Nothing that involves my life."
"All right," she says smoothly, scattering the results of her narrowed search before us as floating vid posters to choose from. She taps the foremost result to enlarge the picture. "Not Vaenia, then?"
I'm surprised at her cheekiness. I wonder if Aethyta is rubbing off on her. Just as well the Vaenia advertising poster is tasteful abstract art with the title in block letters; it betrays none of the filth within. Otherwise, Liara would not be able to keep up this facade. She is playing a damn good game, and I know it's for my benefit.
"I think I wore out the OSD on that one last year," I fib, to see where it gets me.
"Well, I haven't seen it," she says boldly. Her gaze still hasn't met mine. "Of course I haven't seen it. As you well know I am far too busy to keep up with current entertainment."
"It works best as a prelude," I say, hoping to break her, "To personal re-enactment."
"And who were you in need of 'prelude' with last year?" she asks, her tone clipped but not annoyed, and sharp eyes now trained on me.
"Myself."
I laugh, a childish snigger at first. Soon turning to rollicking fits of giggles until I'm laughing so long, I'm not sure what was funny in the first place. She soon joins me in the mirth of the moment, and that's when her eyes finally meet mine.
"Well, I think we might be in the mood for a comedy," she decides, flicking another one of the vid posters to the fore. "The 840 Year Old Virgin?"
I read the synopsis aloud: "A comedy about the life of an impossibly nerdy asari."
"It's got very good reviews," she remarks, scrolling through.
"Not hitting too close to home?" I tease to her oblivious expression. "I mean, that could've been you some centuries down the line, if we hadn't met."
"You really think so?" she says, seeming to take it in good humour. "I'm 'impossibly nerdy'?"
"Would you prefer 'geek'?"
"And I suppose you're so special, Commander, that in the whole galaxy there was only you?" she says haughtily.
I think you're the one to answer that, Liara.
"What if I'd left you to stay nerdy with your ruins?" I ask.
"I would've grown up some time," she says, suddenly serious. "Perhaps not quite so quickly with knowledge that the galaxy may end the next day."
I clench my teeth, trying to strangle a question that has been turning over inside me for some time. I decide to risk it.
"Has there only been me?"
"Only you," she confirms, looking back to her omni-tool. She barely needed to think about it. I don't suppose you would.
I consider a further joke, possibly at my expense to ease her vulnerability. But I think the best thing to do is to relent from the barrage of banter.
"Well – I think we should watch the virgin movie," I decide.
"Agreed," she nods, selecting it on her omni-tool and casting the image onto the behemoth of a TV that could be a rain shelter for a small family if upended.
The vid's enjoyable. Funny, genuine and I can't lie and say that the protagonist doesn't remind me of a 106-year-old Liara, which makes it all the more endearing. I remember the tentative touches and dizzy flushes, all in the back of the med-bay.
As charming as the vid is (and as amusing as it is to Liara's reactions to it, knowing that she's now putting herself into the protagonists' shoes) my eyelids feel heavy and my body wants to hibernate. It could be the wine or the warmth, but I'm struggling to stifle a series of deep yawns.
Given how difficult it can be to string together a few hours of rest (and that's only usually when Aria exhausts me), I don't want to fight the blanket of sleep drawing over me.
"If I fall asleep," I whisper, as if there were other patrons that may be disturbed from watching the vid, "please don't leave. It'll be a twenty-minute wine nap. Then I'll be awake for the life-affirming conclusion."
She nods as I start to nestle into the sofa, the drowsiness welcoming me like an old friend.
"Shepard," she starts, her breath hitching. "You could... rest against me. If you want to."
Speaking takes energy. Thinking about it takes energy. I don't have those kinds of resources and thus accept her offer by leaning into her body. Her soft and supple flesh provides more comfort than a couch ever could.
A few moments after first contact, I'm out.
–
Slowly, I feel myself dragged from sleep. I think I've been under longer than the anticipated twenty minutes. Probably because of how comfortable I am.
Which is curiously not against a shoulder.
I'm snuggled in her lap, my face pressing against her warm stomach and my body curled in a foetal position.
I look up at her. She doesn't know I'm awake yet.
Her arm is resting on my side. The light from the screen illuminates her features in pale light. Her expression serene. Her flesh soft.
She is achingly beautiful.
I don't know what I'm waiting for.
Without debate or protracted decision-making, I reach up. Grab the back of her neck.
Pull her down to my lips for a-
I wake with such a start that Liara judders beneath me. She places her palm on my head to calm me.
I'm still in her lap. Curled up protectively and her other hand is exactly where it was before... I don't know which is the dream or what the hell is happening.
"Shepard, it's OK," she soothes, stroking my hair, looking down at me.
Her face is the same: beautiful in shimmering pale light.
"What-"
"You've been asleep for a few hours," she says softly. "Didn't want to wake you when you were so peaceful. I don't know if you still have trouble sleeping."
"How did-" I mumble, raising my head from her knee.
"You just... curled up there after a while," she tells me. "It's OK."
I sit up, struggling a little with coordination. She helps as much as she can.
I feel cold now with us sitting apart. As it should be.
I allowed the playfulness of this evening in the hope that we could go some way to rebuilding our friendship. That's the official line. That spending time together, and indulging her charms to alleviate my mood earlier would be a good thing.
I know I might have gone a little further than I should with some comments or questions, but they were words alone.
But being close to her, having a dream of almost kissing her...
The bitter taste guilt coats my mouth as I think of Aria.
How could I do this now?
I fight the instinctual reaction to my screaming conscience: which is to remove myself from Liara's presence immediately.
Instead, I'm going to try and be her friend. Stop dwelling on the past and unnecessarily exposing the old wounds that barely healed with the questions I never got answered in a thinly-veiled attempt to get closure. Stop confusing her with such acts, leading her to false assumptions.
I blink away the bleariness and focus on the safe point in the room: the TV.
Familiar images: slanted stone walls, overgrown greenery, thousands of blue rimmed ovals.
"Ilos," I murmur.
"Yes, sorry, Shepard. Nothing from real life. I'll turn it off," she says quickly, opening her omni-tool.
"No, it's OK," I say hoarsely, reaching down for my wine. "Don't tell me it's got that Blasto bastard in it. He takes credit for everything."
"It's a documentary. Came out a few—"
I cover her mouth to concentrate on the voice coming out of the sound system. It's the same voice.
I turn to her, not able to muster the words just yet. Given how groggy I still feel, it would likely come out as primitive as: How are you in the TV?!
She can read me as well as if the words were etched on my face in prothean symbols.
"After I published, I never got to go to a conference," Liara says. "By then I was on Illium and working every waking hour in the information market. So, there were no autographs to sign, or inappropriately interested Matriarchs to kindly rebuff, you see."
My own words to her echo in my head.
"But a film crew contacted me about my paper. They wanted to make a documentary. I gave them my working notes, my audio logs, drafts and such. And then a feature interview when it was nearly finished," Liara explains.
"That's amazing," I smile, listening to the two Liaras in the room. One beside me, and the other describing what it was like to land on the planet, untouched for thousands of millennia. For a brief moment I hear the wonder in her voice that made me fall so deeply for her
"This is the first chance I've had to see it," she says quietly, under her own voiceover.
"And is it good? So far?"
"They've done an excellent job," she whispers.
An artistic representation of what looks like the Prothean VI appears on-screen.
"I told them about Vigil," she confesses, a little belatedly as it looms large on the screen before me. "You were gone and no one believed in the Reapers. I wanted someone to know. It often made me sound like a lunatic, but people needed to know."
I nod my approval.
"They did really well. Captured his essence," I remark.
"I might have passed on a sketch or two of my own," she mumbles.
"You draw?"
"I sketch," she corrects. "It's technical more than artistic; for recording in the field. It's important to adhere to dimensions and-"
"Hey, can you keep it down?" I tease. "I'm trying to listen to the pre-eminent scholar of Ilos here."
She smiles beatifically at me. It's infectious, I can't help but return it.
I think we're going to be OK.
A/N - I hadn't realised that I'd omitted chapter 39 on , so that too has been uploaded tonight.
AO3 profile is /users/angelic1_hp/pseuds/angelic1_hp