Liara slumped roughly to the ground, leaning back against a tree as the sun beat down overhead. Squinting through the bright sunshine, she swept her gaze across the clearing in the jungle where they had stopped. In front of her, a grassy meadow extended outwards for several hundred feet before the dense wall of foliage that bordered the clearing cut off her view. Behind this forest wall, the shape of the mountain they had just vacated rose up above the treeline, forming an imposing ridge that framed the blue sky above.
Liara sighed and looked down towards her omni-tool. Activating it with a flick of her wrist, she gazed towards the last message she had received from Tali, still open from the last time she had read it. "Joker just picked us up, we're on our way to your position. Also, he suggested slapping Shepard to see if that wakes her up, but Chakwas threatened to sedate him so maybe don't do that."
A sudden thump off to one side broke Liara's concentration. Looking over to her right as she deactivated her omni-tool, she turned to see Jack roughly depositing Shepard onto the ground a few feet away, with Miranda irately striding up behind her. "As gentle a touch as ever, it seems."
Jack straightened up with a scowl. "Fuck off, she's not made out of glass." Without sparing Liara a glance, she turned on her heel and stalked off across the clearing, shoulder checking Miranda as she moved past her.
Rolling her eyes with a scoff, Miranda turned to glare back over her shoulder towards Jack as Liara frowned quizzically up at her from the ground. Perplexed for a moment by the sudden animosity between the two women, Liara instead looked towards Shepard next to her. Scooting over a couple feet, she gently raised Shepard's head up off of the ground to rest on her thigh instead. Her head now pressing heavily into Liara's leg, Shepard continued to lay completely still, seemingly dead if not for the thin sheen of sweat covering her face and the occasional twitch of her eyes beneath their lids.
A dull rush of panic once again welled up in her chest as a pounding, choking wave of stress, and after a moment Liara forced herself to look away to find something else to focus on. Glancing back towards Miranda, she saw the human still staring after Jack with an oddly pensive expression. Suddenly feeling like she should say something, Liara hesitantly cleared her throat. "Is your friend alright?"
Without looking away from Jack's retreating form, Miranda sniffed disdainfully. "If you think I'm friends with that psychopathic catastrophe, you'd be grossly mistaken." She crossed her arms to punctuate her judgment, but as Liara watched a slight hint of melancholy flickered across her face once more. "To answer your question, however, she'll be fine."
Liara nodded slowly, feeling somehow even more confused than before. "Either way, I wanted to thank the two of you for helping us today. I do not think Shepard would have made it out without you."
At this, Miranda finally turned to stare down towards Liara, any softness from before immediately covered by a mask of clinical indifference. "I didn't choose to help you out of the kindness of my heart or anything childish like that. You two simply happened to be the most convenient solution to a problem of mine, so I decided to keep you both alive."
Liara felt her blood run cold underneath Miranda's icy gaze, feeling suddenly like a single figure on a vast spreadsheet before such relentless pragmatism. Swallowing down her nerves, she retorted, "This problem wouldn't have anything to do with this Cerberus you mentioned, would it?"
Miranda stared silently down towards her for a moment, completely still except for a minute downturn at the corners of her mouth. Feeling once again like she was being judged against some unknown standard, Liara returned her gaze defiantly as her heart rate slowly began to kick up. The quiet continued for several seconds, with the tension in the air becoming more and more palpable until at last a loud thump further into the clearing distracted them both. Leaning to one side to look past Miranda, Liara found that Jack had moved about thirty feet away and was now sullenly hurling rocks out over the forest in small bursts of biotics.
Miranda sighed and began to massage her temple, softly muttering, "Bloody animal." Turning back towards Liara, she dropped her hand from her forehead. "All you need to know about Cerberus is that the less you know about them, the better." As she spoke, she activated her omni-tool and began to type various commands into it. "The simple math of the situation is that Cerberus doesn't know who you are yet, so the artifact we found will be safer with you."
Typing in one final command before deactivating the omni-tool, she turned back over her shoulder to shout, "Jack, it's time to go, stop being a child."
As she started to step away, Liara called out, "Our ship should be here momentarily, would you like a ride?"
Miranda immediately froze, before slowly turning back towards Liara with a slightly perplexed expression. "You two are awfully quick to trust strangers, you know that?"
Liara blinked, before gesturing back towards her and Jack. "Only as quick as you are to help them."
Miranda's brow raised a fraction of an inch, before her mouth slowly quirked into a sly grin. Turning away once again, she began to walk back toward Jack, who had sullenly shoved her hands into her pockets. After moving a decent distance away, she turned to call back over her shoulder, "Try to stay out of trouble, Doctor," before fully disappearing back into the forest, Jack trailing closely behind.
Quiet fell over the clearing as they left, with only the occasional bird call or rustle of wind through leaves breaking the silence. With a sigh, Liara shifted against the tree, now resigned to settling down until the Normandy arrived. Flicking open her omni-tool once again, she read and then reread Tali's message, hoping that perhaps if she looked at it enough times the rest of the crew might arrive sooner.
A soft grunt broke the silence, and on her lap Liara felt Shepard's head shift. Immediately shutting off her omni-tool, she looked down to see Shepard's eyes once again swiveling around beneath their lids as her upper lip twitched once before settling back down. Suddenly desperate for anything to do, Liara quickly reached out a hand and pressed it to Shepard's forehead to find the skin beneath her hand to be unusually warm.
Shepard, for her part, had no reaction to this new point of contact, and as she watched Liara felt a wash of helplessness begin to prick at the corners of her eyes. Leaning back to rest her head against the trunk behind her, she started to rack her brain for anything she knew about first aid. She had often been injured herself on her various solo excursions, and even back when she still had been a part of larger archaeological teams it wasn't uncommon for crumbling ruins to fall on someone or to twist an ankle on some uneven ground. Her brow furrowed as she slowly clenched her fists in the grass below her. Even with the odd sprain or scrape, nothing she had ever seen had been as serious as this.
Suddenly, she paused. Looking back down to Shepard, she felt her heart briefly seize in her chest. Swiping a trembling thumb gently over her forehead, Liara mouth fell slightly open as another viewpoint presented itself to her. All of the injuries she had witnessed in the past had been either on herself or her colleagues, but never had she felt such a choking sense of worry suffocate all other thoughts. Beneath her hand, Shepard twitched again as Liara realized that somehow, this one human's well being meant more to her than people she had known for years.
Dimly, she felt her heart begin to pound in her chest as a thrill of energy ran through her like electricity. Carefully and ever so softly, her hand on Shepard's brow began to move millimeter by millimeter, until at last she reached the border of her hairline. She paused for a moment, then with a shaky exhale pushed forwards to card her fingers through Shepard's hair. The dark brown strands parted easily under her hand, with the short locks poking up just high enough to hide the backs of her fingers. A reverent sense of awe began to break through her fog of anxiety as, with the gentle precision born from decades of excavations, she began rubbing her fingers in small circles and marveling at the impossibly soft, alien texture of Shepard's hair.
Letting her gaze fall down to Shepard's face, Liara's breath caught in her throat as she found herself with an opportunity to truly take in the face of the woman before her. While awake, Shepard always seemed like the sun; a pillar of strength and warmth that you couldn't quite look directly at to see what it really looked like. Now, however, as she lay unresponsive and vulnerable her face seemed almost more open somehow, like some sort of shield had been dropped and the softer side of Shepard had been let out. She seemed a bit smaller, perhaps, but as Liara gently traced the scar slashing through her left eyebrow, she realized she had never seemed quite so real.
As she continued to study every detail hidden on Shepard's sleeping face, a memory gently bubbled up in the back of her mind. Blinking, Liara found herself confronted with the first word spoken between the two of them during their meld as a word appeared unbidden to describe the sleeping woman. Softly, with barely more than a whisper, Liara mumbled, "Beautiful…"
The sound of rushing air and the roar of engines shattered the calm, causing Liara to flinch and look upwards just in time to see a flock of frightened birds evacuate the trees around her with indignant cries. A moment later, the lumbering, rectangular shape of the prow of the Normandy came into view as it deftly spun in the air, turning the body of the ship to face Liara as it slowly lowered itself to settle down into the grassy clearing. Raising up a hand to block the gusts of wind now buffeting her, Liara squinted forwards to see the front of the ship tip open with an angry squeal, revealing the disorganized cargo bay within.
As soon as the large metal door slammed into the ground, three figures leapt forwards from the ship and began running towards Liara, who raised a weary hand in greeting as Garrus, Tali, and Doctor Chakwas all sprinted towards her. In moments, Garrus and Tali situated themselves on either side of Shepard and began hoisting her up off the ground as Chakwas glued herself to Shepard's side, a focused frown on her face as her omni-tool began scanning any part of her it could reach.
Feeling suddenly overwhelmed, Liara simply sat back as Tali and Garrus took off in a jog towards the Normandy as Chakwas shouted, "Take her straight to the medbay, I have a bed already prepared." Figuring she should probably get onto the ship before they left her behind, Liara forced herself upright, wincing as she stood at the soreness that had set in from her lack of movement. Starting forwards, she blinked in surprise as Chakwas came up beside her as they stepped onto the thick metal ramp. "Don't think I've forgotten about you, Liara. I'll be busy with Shepard for a bit, so I expect to see you at my door first thing tomorrow morning."
She paused as they crossed fully into the cargo bay, and as Liara turned to face her she found the doctor looking towards her with a sympathetic smile. "Do try to go get some rest though, it'll do you some good."
Smiling tiredly in return, Liara nodded in affirmation. Satisfied with her response, Chakwas turned on her heel and strode through the door at the far end of the cargo bay, already reading through preliminary scans as the door closed behind her.
Huffing out a deep sigh, Liara moved to follow the doctor before stopping with a grunt as a wave of exhaustion hit her like a truck, threatening to buckle her knees as her vision flickered. She quickly reached out to a nearby table to support herself, knocking some loosely scattered tools onto the floor with a clang as she took a moment to recenter herself. Behind her, the telltale squealing of metal signaled the closing of the front of the ship, and beneath her feet the floor began to rumble as the engines kicked up once again. Figuring she had better follow Chakwas' advice sooner rather than later, she shook her head once in an attempt to focus before blearily stepping through the cluttered bay.
Prying open the door to the mess hall, Liara trudged forwards to fall heavily onto the old couch sitting around the meeting table. Tilting her head back to rest on the cushions, she closed her eyes and allowed herself a moment to bemoan the fact that having a private room behind the medbay meant being barricaded from her bed anytime somebody got hurt.
Immediately, a punch of guilt hit her in the stomach as she remembered who specifically was in said medbay. Groaning, Liara frowned as a flood of concern followed quickly after, disturbing any chance of a quick nap with thoughts of Shepard lying stretched out on a sterile bed, scanners and medical devices whirling all around her. After several seconds of this, she opened her eyes and sat forwards with a groan as she gave up on getting rest anytime soon. Reaching over to rifle through her satchel, she instead pulled out her thick notebook and cracked it open to her latest set of notes, figuring she might as well be productive if she wasn't going to sleep.
Thumbing past a couple pages, Liara found herself staring down towards a quick sketch of the massive executioner monument, with several little observations annotating various points of interest. She quickly brought out her pencil and started the beginnings of a companion drawing, outlining the vague shapes of the statues once they had been decapitated. The sounds of pencil lead scratching against paper joined the dull thrum of engines as the only sounds in the mess hall, and in moments Liara lost herself in the familiar tedium of recording her findings as accurately as possible.
Several minutes later, once she was satisfied with her relief of the statues, she flipped to the next page to start a sketch of the artifact they had discovered. Taking a moment to remember its curved stone shape and jagged edges, she placed the tip of her pencil against the page before suddenly stopping with a frown. Glancing over towards her satchel, she hesitantly set her notebook aside before cautiously opening the bag to peer inside. As light illuminated the contents of her satchel, the sight of the stone fragment within greeted Liara, who felt her skin begin to tingle uncomfortably. Memories of golden light and sourceless whispers appeared as she stared towards the artifact, and a pit of apprehension slowly formed in her stomach as she stared warily towards the unassuming piece of stone.
Despite all of this, a sudden urge to hold the artifact herself flared within her, warring against her better judgment as a compelling itch to simply touch it grew and grew. Liara worried her lip between her teeth, thinking of the horrid wave of nausea and flash of lights as Shepard had grabbed it, all of which logically seemed like excellent reasons to absolutely not touch the thing. And yet, the other, arguably less reasonable side of her argued that Liara had been perfectly fine holding the artifact next to her in a thin canvas bag for hours, and even if she did suffer the same fate as Shepard, Chakwas was only a deck away.
Liara closed her eyes and began to rub her temples as the pendulum within her gradually swung from Respectable Researcher into the realm of Excitable Adventurer. Huffing petulantly at her own foolishness, she opened her eyes again to stare mistrustfully at the artifact as she grumbled, "This part isn't going into the research paper."
With that, she quickly reached forwards and plucked the artifact out of the satchel before holding it away from herself with a wince. A moment passed, then another, until finally Liara cautiously opened her eyes again to squint at the stone in her hands. Unlike before, no runes began glowing bright blue, and no sense of nausea flared up out of nowhere. Furrowing her brow, she gingerly brought the stone artifact closer towards her as she realized that, for whatever reason, the thing now seemed to be perfectly safe to touch.
Feeling her reservations fall away, Liara cradled the piece of the ring as she began to truly examine it. The artifact itself was incredibly cool to the touch, almost to a painful degree, and after extending for eight inches it abruptly cut off with a jagged edge on either side, as if it had been sheared off of a larger whole. Peering closer, she began to make out the small runes carved all across the surface of the ring, many of them being completely worn away or even scratched off in several places. Frowning in concentration, she strained her eyes to try to make out any details as she chose to focus on one rune in particular that appeared in several places across the disk. Even with the repetition of this symbol, however, Liara found her frustration mounting as the lack of legibility left her just at the cusp of being able to decipher it, but unable to go the final distance.
She sighed loudly and took a moment to readjust her grip, figuring she might have a better chance looking at the artifact from a different angle, when a sudden glimmer caught her eye. Tilting her head to one side, she flipped the stone around just in time to see one such rune gleaming a faint, golden light. Her eyes widening, she leaned down to read the rune as this gold began to slowly fade away, until just as it disappeared she made out a single word.
Death.
Liara flinched backwards, barely stopping herself from flinging the artifact across the deck. Lunging back towards her satchel, she stuffed the stone chunk back inside before dropping the bag onto the table in front of her. She sagged back against the couch with a shuddering breath, frowning as she realized she was now shivering from the cold, with the air in front of her fogging where it hadn't a moment before.
The sound of creaking metal split the air, causing Liara to yelp and spin over her shoulder just in time to see Tali step out of the elevator. The quarian stopped in place, looking between the bag thrown onto the table and Liara's pale face, before cautiously asking, "Everything okay down here?"
Liara nodded quickly, resisting the urge to sneak a glance back towards her satchel. "Yes, I was just doing a bit of research." She swallowed thickly, willing herself to stop shivering as she continued, "I just needed something to do while waiting to hear how Shepard is doing."
Tali nodded sagely. "Yeah, I understand that." She peered silently towards Liara for a moment, her face inscrutable behind her mask as she crossed her arms. "Actually, I was just about to go fix something real quick. Wanna give me a hand?"
Her brow raising in surprise, Liara nodded hesitantly. "I do not have any particular engineering experience, but I suppose I could try to help."
Tali uncrossed her arms, happily chirping, "Good, let's go then!" as she turned and made her way across the mess hall. Liara quickly scrambled to her feet, pausing for a moment to debate if she should take her satchel before finally deciding that she could use a break from Prothean artifacts for the moment. Stepping around the laughably broken-in couch, she jogged through the mess to catch up to Tali just as she popped open a hatch on one of the slightly rusted bulkheads. Tali turned back over her shoulder to confirm that Liara was following, then happily called, "In we go then," as she stepped through the gap.
Liara paused for a moment, frowning skeptically as she estimated this opening to be only about five feet tall and maybe two feet wide. She shrugged, figuring if Tali could fit then probably so could she, then hunched down and squeezed herself forwards through the hatch. Unfortunately, the space beyond the entrance to this maintenance tunnel didn't grow much past the hatch, with Liara's crest nearly scraping the ceiling as she found herself wedged between two walls completely enveloped by cascading bundles of electrical wiring and countless blinking panels, all gently humming as they displayed various shipboard functions and energy efficiency readings between analogue switches and twisting dials of all sizes.
From deeper into the bowels of the Normandy, Tali's voice rang out. "Just up here, Liara, you're almost there!" Liara started forwards once again, gingerly stepping over another grouping of cables taped to the metal floor as she mentally thanked the Goddess for not inflicting her with claustrophobia. Keeping her arms pressed tightly to her sides, she shuffled sideways one foot at a time, slowly creeping her way through the maintenance tunnel while doing her best to avoid touching anything, all the while thinking of how embarrassing it would be for Shepard to finally wake up only to find that her ship had exploded because Liara had accidentally short-circuited every system at once.
After nervously traversing nearly twenty feet of cramped crawlspace, Liara stumbled forwards into a small chamber as the walls fell away on either side, revealing an open space about five or so feet across. In every direction, she saw more maintenance halls shooting off in different directions, and looking down she saw the floor of this hub was completely carpeted in various tubing and cables nearly as thick around as her arm, with the entire room dimly illuminated by the plethora of digital screens and readouts scattered around the walls, ceiling, and even the floor in one or two spots. Across from her, she saw Tali sitting atop a particularly well-coiled set of cabling, her hands buried deep in an opening in one wall as she fidgeted with some complicated gadgetry that Liara couldn't make out.
As she finally struggled her way into this maintenance hub, she carefully lowered herself to sit on a decently clear spot of the floor before asking, "What was it you needed help with again?"
Glancing over her shoulder, Tali pointed towards a bright orange toggle switch poking out a few feet away. "Right, just hold that up and make sure it doesn't move, okay?"
Nodding, Liara shuffled over and flipped the switch up with a click, leaving her hand in place to prevent it from falling back down. Returning her gaze to her work, Tali continued, "Also, you seemed pretty shaken up back there. Are you sure everything is alright?"
Liara hesitated for a moment, before eventually responding, "I admit, I didn't expect the ruins we found to be so… disturbing, I guess you could say." She frowned, leaning to rest her back against a nearby bulkhead. "I also cannot help but keep thinking that if I hadn't asked for all of your help, none of you would have gotten hurt."
Tali suddenly laughed. "Actually, I should thank you for that. Garrus tried to sneak out of the sick bay after we dropped off Shepard without letting Chakwas look at his bullet wound, so now they're both strapped down to the beds."
Liara shook her head vehemently. "That is exactly what I'm talking about. I've only really been thinking about trying to hunt down this Prothean masterwork, but we've all almost died because of this."
Suddenly halting her work, Tali shifted to turn more fully towards Liara as she cooed, "Aw, you care about us, that's sweet." Liara stared at her incredulously, now at a loss for words as her cheeks slowly began to tingle with warmth. Removing one hand from the hole in the wall, Tali reached over and patted Liara's knee. "Listen, I know you've only been hanging around with us for a week or two, but I already like you a lot! Honestly though, at this point anyone on the crew who says they don't like you is a liar, don't listen to any of that."
She released Liara's knee and turned back towards the bulkhead to resume her work. "You really don't need to feel guilty about us getting hurt trying to help you out or anything like that. We're all doing this as a volunteer job anyways, so anything that happens is on us at the end of the day."
Liara ducked her head, slightly mortified at the thought of the crew enjoying her presence, before the rest of Tali's words registered. "Wait, I thought I paid all of you for this."
"Well, technically you paid us for the first job, yeah. Hand me that wrench real quick." Taking care not to release her grip on the switch, Liara leaned over and plucked the designated tool off the ground and handed it over as Tali continued, "If we're being nitpicky though, you only ever paid us to get you out of that mine. After that, Shepard convinced us all to keep helping you out for free."
She paused for a second, before shrugging. "I guess 'convinced us' is a bit overstating it, but yeah, normally by now we would have written up a longer contract or something to make sure you could keep paying to keep us on." With a startlingly loud pop, she yanked a dark green cable out of its socket, before leaning forwards to connect it somewhere else. "But now we're all friends and it's like you're a member of the crew, so I definitely prefer the way that things have worked out."
Staring blankly towards Tali, she found herself at a complete loss for words. Awkward heat flared in her cheeks as a sort of nervous, if not entirely uncomfortable energy roiled around in her gut. She opened her mouth to speak, then suddenly coughed and cleared her throat before trying again. "I– I really appreciate that, thank you Tali." Turning at the sudden emotion in her voice, Tali tilted her head to the side in question. Cracking a wry smile, Liara continued, "I am not accustomed to having this many friends, if I'm being honest."
Tali sat silently for a moment, before with a casual twist of her wrist she slid a final piece of tubing into place with a loud kachunk! Fully turning to face Liara for the first time since they had arrived here, she leaned forwards and took Liara's free hand between both of her own. "Well this just means that we'll have to become best friends so you can get even more experience!"
Liara chuckled, squeezing Tali's hand as she blinked back a burning sensation that felt suspiciously like tears. Looking over towards her other hand, Tali continued, "Oh, right, you can let go of that switch now, thanks."
Dropping her hand down gratefully, Liara began to massage her arm where it had begun to tingle from holding it upright for too long. She looked back towards where Tali had been working, suddenly suffused with an odd warmth both at the thought of this new friendship and at the idea of making herself useful on Shepard's ship.
Across from her, Tali shifted to lean back against a wall before casually asking, "So, you thinking about Shepard again?"
A blush exploded across Liara's cheeks, her eyes widening as she blanched at the question. Immediately bursting into laughter, Tali comfortingly patted her knee. "It's okay, I get it. She's just sort of a lot, you know? Like she has this magnetic presence around her."
Liara nodded, thinking once again of the brief glimpse she had of Shepard's mind. "Yes, I know what you mean. I've only known her for a bit, but looking at her it almost feels like I am transfixed." She paused for a moment, tapping a finger on her bottom lip thoughtfully. "It is like she is larger than life, somehow. She's completely unlike anyone I think I have ever met."
Her heart suddenly pulsed strongly against her ribs, and with a start she realized she had perhaps revealed a bit more of herself than she had intended. Trying not to wince, she looked over towards Tali in hopes that maybe she hadn't noticed her blunder. Tali, for her part, simply sat quietly, with only a curious tilt of the head giving away anything about what she might be thinking.
The silence began to stretch uncomfortably long, and just as Liara started to feel as if she would gently wither away, Tali finally looked away to begin fiddling with a wrench. "Well, however special Shepard may seem, I've seen her knocked on her ass enough times to know that she's mortal, just like the rest of us."
Liara swallowed grimly as she nodded in agreement, thoughts of Shepard collapsing in the depths of the ruins once again running through her mind. Before she could wallow for too long, however, Tali continued, "I've also noticed that she's acting very different from anything I've seen before, but only when you happen to be in the room. Weird, right?"
Finding herself suddenly struggling to maintain an even rhythm of breathing, Liara fought to keep her face neutral as her traitorous heart pounded away in her chest. She chanced a glance towards Tali, only to see her still nonchalantly turning her tool over between her hands. Thoughts began racing through her mind, with uncomfortably strong emotions tossing and turning between images of scarred brows and lips, strong hands, and a husky laugh, and suddenly Liara found herself desperate for a change of subject. She roughly cleared her throat, then asked in a conspicuously strained tone, "If you don't mind explaining, what did you need me to hold that switch for?"
"What, that?" Tali flapped one hand between them dismissively. "I just had to reset one of the arrays of inertial dampeners real quick, so I needed you to hold that switch up so the system didn't accidentally restart before I finished and fling us both into the walls at light speed."
Liara swallowed thickly as she stared wide-eyed at Tali, who simply shrugged. "Don't worry about it, we're fine, right? Anyways, let's get out of here, I'm starving."
Pain and darkness welcomed Shepard back into consciousness. Each moment was punctuated by a slow, undulating wave of dull discomfort, swelling up and down like a wave of pain. In all directions an empty void surrounded her, so dark and so completely lifeless that it was difficult to tell if her eyes were open at all.
Wincing, she tried to turn her head to look around, only to find herself unable to move. As her awareness fully returned, she dimly realized that every muscle in her body had tensed at once, locking her in place in a prison made of her own tendons and bunching flexors. Another wave of pain swept through her, moving up through her frozen legs, through her chest, and finally up into her head where it exploded into a dizzyingly intense migraine. It was impossible to tell how long she had been in this state, or even where she was, with the only hint towards the passage of time being the tremors in her muscles slowly growing more pronounced from holding her in place for too long.
Shepard floated in this shapeless void, unable to move or even speak, until finally light exploded into being in front of her. Searing, laser-like beams of neon blue light burst from nothingness, burning painful afterimages into her retinas as her eyes began to water. Looking down towards the source, she saw her own body now illuminated, her right hand held out in front of her and clutching the curved piece of the Ring of Life they had found as it continued to glow and shimmer between her fingers.
The light pulsed again, keeping time with Shepard's rolling headache, and looking forwards she saw the light now project out and across this infinite void around her. Unable to blink, she watched as the light resolved itself into images flooding out around her, shifting and flickering like a light show projected onto dark clouds of smoke. Figures began to appear as they roiled around her, lines of hunched humanoids standing in lines to her right, while to the left the flashing of bared blades seared haunting images of violence into her mind. Pools of dark blood spread out in front of her, with images of gushing liquid interspersed between figures forced to their knees in dark rooms.
All around her now the images began to flash faster, each body appearing before her before being replaced just as quickly, often interrupted by brief, gruesome acts of violence or screams that dimly reverberated around her. Unable to look away, or even close her eyes, Shepard found herself clinging onto the pain suffusing her body as the only distraction from the overwhelming torrent of sensory overload barraging her mind.
The stone artifact in her hand suddenly went painfully cold, freezing itself to the skin of her hand. Managing to tear her gaze away from the horrific display before her, Shepard watched as the runes adorning the stone all flared with light, until the blue light within them all discharged at once, flooding Shepard's mind in a wave of blistering blue.
"No!" Shepard bolted upright, arms thrown up before her as she winced at the bright white light now surrounding her. Slowly cracking her eyes further open, her brow furrowed in confusion as she saw the clean, white walls and perfectly ordered workspace of the Normandy's sick bay.
"Easy, Shepard, you're safe now." Lowering her arms, Shepard looked over to her left to see Doctor Chakwas herself sitting next to her, complete with a concerned frown and a datapad reading out her biometrics. "You should really lay back down before you hurt yourself even more."
She slowly lowered her arms, still frowning as she began, "How–" before choking on a dry, rasping cough. Clearing her throat, she swallowed as she realized her mouth was incredibly dry. "How did I get here?"
"Garrus and Tali were the ones who carried your unconscious body back onto the ship, if that's what you're asking." Chakwas typed a short note into her datapad before deactivating it and folding her hands together. "As for how you got out of the ruins, all I know is Liara mentioned something about two strange women helping her move you to a clear landing zone."
"Must've been Miranda and Jack." Shepard started to lower herself back onto the bed, only to yelp as a burning stripe of pain shot up her spine. Falling back onto the pillow with a wince, she gasped, "Did they tell anyone where they were going?"
"No, and I'm afraid I was too busy trying to fix the consequences of your latest stunt to investigate." Fixing Shepard in place with a disapproving glare, she continued, "Currently, you're suffering from a spasm of your lower trapezius, some bruising on your face and knuckles, and probably some soreness from me having to unset then reset your dislocated shoulder before it healed wrong." She leaned back in her chair, sniffing disapprovingly. "You know how I hate it when you insist on setting dislocations in the field."
A low, two-toned chuckle came from behind Chakwas, and leaning over to look past her Shepard saw Garrus sitting on the next bed over with a liberal amount of gauze wrapped around his shoulder. "I don't know why you even try to rein her in anymore, doc."
"Because I dream of the day that one of you can go planetside for more than three hours without turning into a medical catastrophe." Turning back towards Shepard, she reactivated her datapad to look through her biometrics again. "Anyways, before the two of you start planning your next injuries, you should know that while you were unconscious I picked up signs of some strange brain activity. Nothing immediately dangerous, mind you, but still not an ideal symptom to see." Looking up from the datapad, she continued, "Does anything feel off or different from normal?"
Shepard shrugged, then winced as her back twinged again. "I feel like I got my ass pretty well handed to me by a rock, but besides that I just have a bit of a headache I guess." Settling into a position more comfortable for her back, she continued, "I did see some visions or something while I was out, though. I couldn't make anything out too well, but it didn't really feel like a normal dream."
Chakwas nodded and hummed to herself thoughtfully. "Right, that could explain potentially unusual brainwave patterns." Standing up from her chair, she walked around Shepard's bed towards her desk as she continued, "We had better keep you here for the time being, just in case."
Grimacing at the thought of extended sick bay time, Shepard turned to look over towards Garrus, who was aimlessly kicking his feet back and forth as they dangled off of his bed. Meeting her gaze, his mandibles flexed as he remarked, "You had us all worried there for a second, Shepard."
Attempting to shrug while laying flat on her back, she jokingly responded, "What, that's not even the longest I've ever been knocked out."
Garrus chuckled a bit, then fell silent after a moment as he shifted his injured arm. "Liara seemed to take it especially hard. She sounded really freaked out when she called us in to pick you up."
Shepard groaned, tipping her head back to stare up at the ceiling. She hadn't even considered how something like this would have affected someone from a less violent background like Liara. Feeling suddenly stupid, she eventually responded, "Shit, yeah, I should probably talk to her to see how she's doing."
A pensive quiet filled the sick bay, with only Chakwas making sound as she typed away at her computer. Shepard shifted on the bed, trying to roll over onto one side without straining her back, when Garrus cleared his throat, sounding uncharacteristically hesitant as he asked, "Hey, I've been meaning to ask, is there something going on between you two? Because all jokes aside, it kinda seems like you're becoming very attached to her."
Shepard's head quickly snapped over to see Garrus staring intently towards her. Trying to keep her voice as neutral as possible, she replied, "Of course I care, she's the client. That's mercenary 101 right there."
Rolling his eyes, Garrus countered, "Okay, one, you and I both know that our contract ended the second we outran those vorcha, and two, I don't think I've seen you this hung up on anybody before." Shepard opened her mouth to protest, but Garrus cut her off. "Which is saying a lot, because no offense Shepard, but you're the biggest lesbian I've ever met."
Shepard barked out a laugh, then winced as her headache briefly flared. "Remind me to stop bringing you along to negotiate with clients." Sighing, she looked away to stare off into space. "Honestly, though, I don't really know at this point. Like I have responsibilities, you know, I can't have–" She stopped, suddenly choking on her words. Grunting in frustration, she lamely kicked at the thin blanket bunched at the foot of her bed. "It's complicated."
Without looking away from her monitor, Chakwas admonished, "Denial has never done anyone a bit of good, Shepard, and it won't start helping you now. Or Liara, for that matter."
Now assaulted from all sides, Shepard forced herself to sit more upright, propping her pillow up behind her back as her back pain flared. Finally able to look around the room, she retorted, "I'm not in denial, I just have more important things to worry about." Gesturing over towards Garrus, she continued, "At the end of the day, it's my job to keep all of you alive, so that's gotta be my priority."
She scratched the back of her head, feeling her confidence wane a bit. "Plus, I haven't even known her for that long, we're all probably just overreacting."
Chakwas turned in her chair to stare exasperatedly towards Garrus, who just shrugged and shook his head before standing. "Well, I've got some calibrations to run, so I think it's time I leave this fun conversation." As he made his way to the door, he gently slapped Shepard's shoulder. "Whenever you feel like getting your head out of your ass, I still owe you that drink."
Shepard scoffed and lightly pushed him off, watching him exit out the medbay doors with a faint smirk. Silence slowly crept its way back into the room as Chakwas returned to her work, leaving Shepard with nothing to do other than stare at the far wall as she mindlessly traced the scars on her forearm. After a few minutes, she glanced over towards Garrus' now vacated bunk, then called out, "Hey Chakwas, any chance–"
"Absolutely not, don't get your hopes up."
The hissing of the door hydraulics cut through the room, and looking over Shepard's brow rose as Liara shyly peeked into the room. Looking up from her console, Chakwas smiled and called out, "Oh, Liara, good, do me a favor and make sure Shepard stays in her bed." Standing up from her chair, she briskly walked towards the door as Liara stepped further into the room. "I'll be back in a few minutes, I just have to go grab some things."
With that, the door slid back shut behind her, leaving the two alone in the now quiet medbay. Shepard watched as she moved to sit in the seat next to her bed, then started to scratch the back of her neck as she began, "T'Soni, listen–"
"I wanted to apologize–" They both trailed off, chuckling awkwardly until Shepard finally gestured for Liara to go first. Biting her lower lip, she hesitated for a second before averting her eyes and restarting. "Shepard, I'm so sorry you got hurt helping me with this, I never intended for this to happen."
"Hey, come on doc, this is exactly what I signed up for." She reached out towards Liara, placing her hand on the edge of the bed. "I'm just glad that you got something out of all this."
Liara hesitated for a moment, then slowly reached forwards to cover Shepard's hand with her own. She sniffed, then in a watery voice replied, "Well, at the very least I'm happy that you are alright."
Shepard's heart suddenly beat against her chest as Liara's cool skin pressed against hers. Forcing herself to look up from where their hands met, she flicked her gaze up towards Liara to see a faint violet hue had begun to suffuse across her cheeks. Swallowing thickly, she averted her own gaze as she willed down a blush of her own. If she just didn't think about her feelings, then that meant there weren't any feelings there, right?
Before she could get too lost in her own head, she was startled out of her reverie as Liara gently removed her hands from her own. "Shepard, I know this all happened very recently, but would you mind if I asked about what happened down there, exactly?"
Trying not to think about how much she suddenly missed the feeling of Liara's hands, Shepard shrugged. "Honestly, I don't remember much. As far as I know, I grabbed that thing we found, then everything went black and I saw some sort of vision, maybe?" Liara nodded along with a look of pure fascination as Shepard continued, "Yeah, then I just woke up in this bed about ten minutes ago I think."
Liara's fingers twitched, as if longing for a pencil to write down a record of this conversation. "Do you remember anything about this vision you saw?"
"Yeah, a bit." Shepard hesitated as an idea suddenly flickered to life. Telling herself that it was simply the most efficient thing to do, she attempted to shrug nonchalantly. "If you're comfortable with it, we could just, uh, do that mind meld thing again, right? Just so you could see for yourself, I mean."
Liara blinked, her brow raising as she let out a surprised, "Oh!" She shuffled in her chair for a moment, before shyly reaching her hands forwards. "Yes, we could do that. For science, of course."
Try as she might, Shepard couldn't stop a goofy little grin from appearing on her face. She reached out to gently grasp Liara's hands in her own, mumbling as she did, "Right, for science."
Liara closed her eyes. "Relax, Shepard." Staring intently towards her, the last thing Shepard saw was Liara opening her eyes, meeting her gaze with her now pitch black irises. "Embrace eternity!"
A bright light flashed between them, then darkness clouded Shepard's sight as she briefly experienced a rush of vertigo. Then, just as quickly, the sensation vanished, leaving her floating once again in an endless void, dark and empty in all directions. Having been in this position once before, she mentally angled herself to peer out towards where she thought the horizon would be as she awaited the crystalline glow of Liara's mind to appear before her.
As she did so, however, a sudden lance of pain ran through her, sweeping up from her feet and coursing up to her head like lightning. Shepard winced, unable to cry out at the intensity of the sensation as the slow rolling pain from her earlier vision steadily reappeared. Images once again began flickering around the periphery of her consciousness, less substantial and harder to interpret than before, but enough to make focusing on any one thing difficult as the next slow rush of pain ran its course. A new sensation began to fizzle to life, slowly growing larger with each burst of pain and spreading itself across Shepard like a slick oil, coating everything about her in a film of raw panic.
Shepard, I'm here. Just focus on me. This new voice cut through the haze now obscuring Shepard's mind like a lighthouse in the fog. Peering forwards, she saw behind the veil of flickering images around her a new light had appeared. As she focused in on it, the light grew, resolving itself into a gentle pulse of blue light that gradually moved closer and closer. In a flash of comprehension, Shepard remembered that she wasn't alone.
That's good, we're in this together now. The gentle cobalt light of Liara's mind swept over her, easily sorting through the visions and pain tormenting Shepard. A deep sense of calm gradually grew within her, and she found herself opening her mind up to Liara with an ease that had escaped her previously. Their minds enmeshed even further, with a sense of satisfaction and rightness steadily growing as they did. Shepard found that, after a bit of reflection, not only was she not quite sure anymore if this satisfaction came from her or from Liara, but she didn't mind either way.
In this new state, with their two minds becoming one, Shepard found herself able to think more clearly than she had since she had awoken. A rush of gratitude appeared between the pair, before it quickly disappeared back into the connection enveloping them both. Taking advantage of her new state of clarity, she began to focus on the rush of images that had tormented her. Alright, T'Soni, here we go.
The connection between them went dark as their proverbial viewpoint shifted, no longer focused on the two of them but looking out across the void surrounding them. Once again, the roiling cloud of dark smoke appeared, but now with Liara's assistance, it only displayed a single flickering image of the outline of a large ring. As they watched, three lines appeared on the ring, separating it into three distinct chunks, before two of the pieces vanished into the smoke. The third piece, however, seemed to fall downwards, with the background of the vision shifting to reveal the starry expanse of space, then a densely populated jungle, and then finally an underground ruin lit by teal lines of light.
Small, shadowy shapes quickly appeared in front of this piece of the ring, resolving themselves into lines of figures of many assorted races. Many of these races were recognizable, such as shackled salarians or hunched vorcha, while many others Shepard had never seen before. The vision shifted again, now displaying image after image of these captives forced to their knees, with familiar blades flashing above them before dark blood splattered across the stone below in a spray of gore.
At this point, the visions began to increase in pace, showing a relentless display of violence and executions, with countless figures all being led to the base of this piece of the ring to die. With each swing of a blade, and each corpse falling to the ground, the ring fragment itself always featured prominently in the background, and as they watched the stone slowly began to glow from within, the malicious blue light flaring each and every time someone died in its presence until it glowed so brightly it was painful to behold. A final blade raised up into the air, gleaming with violent intent, and as it swung downwards the ring flashed with searing light, then went black as the visions finally came to an end.
For a moment, Shepard and Liara remained alone together, still mentally entangled enough that determining where one stopped and the other started was nearly impossible. A flush of contentment slowly grew between them, and for the first time in a very long time Shepard found herself completely at ease.
Unfortunately, at that moment the tendrils of Liara's mind began to withdraw, leaving behind a strangely cold feeling of emptiness. A moment later, the mental connection fully severed, and Shepard blearily opened her eyes as she winced once again at the bright lights of the medical bay. Looking over towards Liara, she found that even fully back in her own mind, the emptiness persisted a bit, almost as if she had forgotten what it had felt like outside of the meld.
Seemingly unaffected by the end of their meld, Liara shook her head slowly. "That was–" She cleared her throat, a slight furrow appearing on her brow. "I never expected a piece of something called the Ring of Life to contain visions so disturbing."
Shepard cracked a humorless grin. "Yeah there was a bit too much death and sacrifice for my taste."
Leaning back in her chair, Liara began thoughtfully tapping her bottom lip with one finger. "Yes, okay, we clearly know now that people were regularly killed at the base of this artifact, but there must have been some reason for it all."
"Maybe it had something to do with that glow we saw." Liara turned back towards her as Shepard elaborated. "I mean, it seemed to me like it was powering up somehow or something similar, at least."
"Yes, that concerned me, too." She trailed off, slowly spinning in her chair as a contemplative silence set in.
Shepard, however, was honestly pretty tired of long silences in the medbay by this point. Shifting in her bed to sit more fully upright, she began popping her thumbs loudly. "Alright, well, where to next, doc?"
Sighing, Liara dropped her hand from tapping on her lip as she responded, "Honestly, I'm not exactly sure what comes next. I should realistically go back to my apartment in Serrice, I have some research there that I suspect would be helpful to look through." She crossed one leg over the other as she briefly flickered her gaze towards Shepard before looking away again. "I know you haven't been picking up any new work while you have been helping me, so you could just drop me off somewhere so you can get back to work."
Frowning, Shepard cocked her head to one side in confusion. When Liara refused to meet her gaze, she leaned forwards, ignoring the pain in her back as she firmly clapped her on the shoulder. "Look, T'Soni, we'll take you wherever you need to go. You said it yourself that we're friends now, and I go with my friends to the end."
Liara slowly turned back to face her, a dazzled expression on her face. Feeling suddenly incredibly self-conscious at her speech, Shepard leaned back in her bed and scratched the back of her neck. "I mean, if you want us to come, like I get it if you don't, we can still drop you off if you want–"
Liara reached forwards to clasp Shepard's hand, cutting her off mid sentence. "Shepard, I would like that very much."
A dumb grin slowly spread itself across Shepard's face as a strange fluttering sensation took up residence in her chest. "Good, um, cool then." Feeling suddenly restless, she glanced over towards the door of the medbay. "So, do you think I could get out of here without Chakwas noticing? I probably could, I think."
Liara laughed, and Shepard's heart pulsed in rhythm. "I don't believe I have been on the Normandy long enough to dispute the great Doctor Chakwas' orders." Standing from her chair, she released Shepard's hand as she made her way towards the exit. "I will do you the favor of not mentioning your escapist tendencies to her, however."
Rolling her eyes, Shepard waved as Liara stepped out through the door before it slid shut behind her. Stuck once again in the quiet of an empty sick bay, she pouted and punched the pillow beneath her. "Figures."
A/N: i swear im trying to get these out faster than this but i just had four incredibly busy weekends in a row so that definitely didn't help with production time. anyways though ive reached a point where im actually having a lot of fun just making all these characters interact and talk to each other, so hopefully you all like that too!
also like having just beat me1 again shep is absolutely a uhaul lesbian and you cannot change my mind