Liara T'Soni and the Ring of Life

by nakati7

Liara T'Soni is a very determined archaeologist who isn't worried to do a little tomb raiding to discover ancient knowledge. Cam Shepard is an ex-Alliance mercenary with a thing for people much smarter than she is. There's no way they'll get up to anything dangerous together, right?

15. Chapter 15

Liara slumped back against the sagging couch in the Normandy's crew deck. In front of her, her notebook sat unopened where she had left it on the communal table nearly an hour ago. She had meant to study her findings while she waited, but had found herself incapable of forcing herself to do anything but stare glumly forwards.

By her side, Tali fidgeted restlessly with her omni-tool as she perched on one arm of the couch. The quarian had looked terrible when Liara first saw her, with a cracked faceplate and a bloody gash torn across a leg of her envirosuit, but Tali had waved off her concern. Now, with a freshly repaired suit and a replacement faceplate set into her mask, she sat restlessly with Liara as they awaited the fate of their friends.

She glanced over her shoulder to look towards the med bay, only to sigh as she saw the windows looking inside were still darkened to prevent anyone outside from looking in during a surgery. As soon as Shepard had fainted, Liara had forced Jack to help drag her into the elevator at the end of the cargo bay. Once they arrived up at the crew deck, they had ran Shepard into the med bay, whereupon a harried Chakwas had evicted them and slammed the door shut behind them.

As they had for the past hour, memories of Shepard's injuries flashed through Liara's mind; scarlet blood dripping from her mouth and nose, patchy bruises spreading the length of her muscled arms, the horrible crack of ribs splintering—

"Liara?"

Liara blinked, the flood of memory receding briefly as she turned to find Tali looking towards her. "Yes, Tali?" she replied.

Tali deactivated her omni-tool with a flick of her wrist, then wrapped both arms around herself. In a small voice, she asked, "Do you think they're going to be okay?"

"Of course they will be," Liara said, hoping she sounded more confident than she felt. "Doctor Chakwas is excellent at her work."

Tali sniffed, and with a pang Liara realized that under her mask she must be crying. "I'm scared for Garrus," she whispered. "He's never been hurt this badly before."

Liara's brow furrowed as she remembered the brief flash of burned skin and pools of blue blood she had seen before Chakwas had removed her from the med bay. Even with just a glimpse, the sight had filled her with a cold dread unlike anything she had ever experienced.

Forcing the image out of her mind, Liara tried to adopt an encouraging tone and said, "Turians are a tough people, and Garrus especially so. I am sure he will be up and on his feet in no time, joking with Shepard over who got the worst scars."

She plastered on her best attempt at a smile, hoping her own worries weren't showing through the cracks. Tali, however, just sniffled again and shook her head. "But what if he doesn't wake up? What if neither of them wake up again, and then we've lost them both?"

Tali's shoulders began to shake, the tears in her voice more evident than ever. "They're all I have, Liara," she sobbed. "I can't be alone again, I- I can't lose Shepard, or Garrus, not now that we finally—"

Liara reached out and wrapped her arms around Tali, whose words cut off into anguished tears. Tucking her further into the hug, Liara pressed her cheek against Tali's head and held her as tightly as she could. "We won't lose them," she murmured, offering the words up as a prayer to the Goddess. "Those two are fighters, and I suspect neither of them have ever given up on anything in their lives."

Tears of her own began to burn at the corners of her eyes, but she stubbornly blinked them back. "No matter what happens, you will not be alone. You said we would be best friends one day, and I intend on sticking around to fulfill that promise."

A watery chuckle escaped Tali as her arms weakly squeezed Liara. "You don't have to make it sound so formal, you know."

Liara smiled. "I will have you know that I take my friendships very seriously."

Tali squeezed her again, then shuffled over a bit to lean more comfortably against her. For the next several minutes the two sat together in companionable silence, drawing a simple comfort from each other's presence.

"Liara?" Tali eventually mumbled. "Thank you for this."

Liara's lips curved into the ghost of a smile even as her chest began to fill with a sense of warm satisfaction. "Think nothing of it."

A silence fell over them once again as they each fell back into their thoughts. What would I do if Shepard really was gone? Liara found herself thinking, only to flinch at the deep ache in her heart at the thought. Once again, the surprising weight of her feelings for Shepard nearly overwhelmed her, as they had for weeks now. If something happened to Shepard before she found a way to get these emotions off her chest, Liara thought that she might shatter like a glass dashed across the floor.

When we're both ready, Shepard had said. Liara huffed out a frustrated breath, the aching sensation in her chest spreading out across her skin like an itch. A sudden urge filled her to stand, or to run, or to claw at her chest until her heart could escape its prison. What was the use in waiting for her affections to become small and manageable when Shepard might be hurt or die every time she left the Normandy?

Oblivious to her distress, Tali moved to flop further onto the couch and rest her head in Liara's lap. "Liara," she began, "can I ask you a question?"

Taking a deep breath and forcing herself to relax as best as she could, Liara nodded. "Of course."

"Are you and Shepard together?"

Liara froze, the whirlwind of thoughts cluttering her mind suddenly whiting out into static. Feeling her tense beneath her, Tali turned to look up from her lap. "I know you sorta already had a crush on her and everything, and we all know she's embarrassingly into you, but have you, like…"

She tapered off awkwardly, her hands flapping as she struggled to finish her thought. Deciding to take pity on her, Liara shook her head. "No, we are not… together, as you put it." Her cheeks began to warm, and feeling a surge of embarrassment she lifted her eyes to look up towards the ceiling. "We had talked about it before landing on Rayingri, but we both decided to wait rather than commit to anything."

Tali tilted her head in confusion, prompting Liara to shrug. "We both wanted to focus on our mission to find the Ring, and with Cerberus closing in, any romantic distractions seemed like unwise complications."

A dull point of regret stuck in her chest even as her eyes drifted back towards the closed med bay doors. "Now, though, it just seems like a missed opportunity."

"I know what you mean." Liara blinked, startled by the depth of sadness in Tali's voice. Looking down, she saw Tali also gazing wistfully towards the med bay. "Trying to play things safe has a way of backfiring, I think."

Memories of Tali and Garrus dancing around each other on their weeks in Serrice floated across Liara's mind, mirrored by her own time spent staring after Shepard. "I believe you may be right," she eventually agreed.

A pneumatic hiss caused them both to jump. Looking back towards the med bay, Liara saw the door slide smoothly open to reveal Doctor Chakwas, looking as worn down and exhausted as Liara had ever seen her. Straightening up in her seat, she frantically called, "Doctor, is—"

Chakwas held up a hand, cutting off Liara's query. After a moment of tense silence, she released a deep sigh. "They're alive," she said. "Despite their best efforts and some rather severe injuries that I intend to have words about…"

She shrugged, her mouth curving upwards into a rueful smile. "Shepard and Garrus are going to make it."

"Thank the Goddess," Liara breathed, relief sweeping through her. "Can we see them?"

Chakwas nodded. "Yes, that's fine. Just don't expect too much out of them, they're both just coming up from anesthesia. "

Liara and Tali immediately surged to their feet, only to stop as Chakwas held up her hand once more. "Before you go in, though, you two had better brace yourselves." With that said, she swept ominously back through the door.

Suddenly nervous, Liara shared a quick glance with Tali before shrugging and heading into the med bay herself. She had already seen Shepard's injuries, hadn't she? Surely she couldn't look worse than she had passed out in the Mako, blood dribbling across the controls.

Stepping through the doorway, she winced at the bracingly white light filling the room. Blinking a few times, she moved forwards to stand at the foot of the nearest bed before stopping in her tracks. "Oh, Shepard…"

Shepard had been laid on her back, her head lifted up onto a thin pillow and her arms tucked loosely against her sides. Her armored vest had been peeled off along with the tank top below it, revealing a kaleidoscope of bruises poking out from behind the thick bandages wrapped across her chest. Her face was deathly pale, with several smaller bandages plastered across her left cheek and the bridge of her nose. Further down, a ring of darkly mottled bruises encircled her throat. Even her arms had been patched up a bit, with various scrapes and cuts glistening with freshly applied medigel.

Liara found herself staring at Shepard's left arm, her eyes tracing the ropy scars from Akuze that spiraled up towards her elbow. Once again, Shepard had narrowly escaped death, only to end up half-dead and with a fresh collection of scars. Swallowing thickly, Liara fought down a fresh wave of tears as she gazed down towards Shepard's face; she took in how horribly pale, how unnaturally still she was. Even after Chakwas' ministrations, she still looked eerily like a corpse. How much closer to death could she come before it caught her?

Chakwas sank into a chair next to Shepard's cot, her expression wistful. "Our great and glorious leader," she said, almost more to herself than anyone else. "I must have patched her up more times than I could count, but…"

She sighed and rubbed her eyes with one hand. "One of these days I fear she'll hurt herself protecting us in a way that I won't be able to fix."

Glancing up, she took in Liara's stricken expression. She reached out, placing a hand comfortingly on Liara's arm, and asked, "Are you alright, dear?"

Liara blinked, resisting a sudden urge to laugh. Shepard had been beaten nearly to death mere hours ago, but was she alright?

"I do not think I am," she finally responded. "Shepard has supported me and fought for me every step of the way on this journey, and look what has become of her. Goddess, this is all my fault!"

Chakwas frowned. "No, Liara, this isn't—"

"I know!" Liara yelled, suddenly livid. Her heart was a bonfire, blazing with anger she could neither explain nor understand. "I have been told time and time again that everyone here is here because they wish to be, or because they want to see me succeed as much as I do. I have been told that just because Cerberus has nearly killed every member of this crew because of a path I set you all on, it does not make it my fault." She laughed, her voice bitter. "I have been told it all, it feels like!"

Chakwas' eyes went wide at her outburst, and all at once Liara felt the anger drain out of her. Feeling strangely hollow, she sniffed and in a hoarse voice choked out, "It certainly still feels like it is my fault, though."

Silence filled the med bay, allowing Liara to stew in her own misery. Rather than speak or refute her once again, Chakwas instead simply grasped Liara's hand between her own and squeezed. Tears burning in her eyes, Liara squeezed back, thankful for the support.

Forcing herself to tear her eyes from Shepard's face, she once again took in what was visible of her beneath the bandages. A slow, rolling ache began to pulse in her chest as she took in Shepard's broad shoulders and muscular arms now slack by her sides. Despite all Liara had seen these arms accomplish, despite how she had watched them flex and pull and fight beside her, they somehow seemed more fragile than before. Almost as if their strength had been an illusion, and only now could Liara see through the mirage.

Suddenly desperate to break the silence filling the room, Liara gestured towards her and in a hoarse voice said, "She always seemed so… large before, didn't she? Like she was somehow more real than the rest of us." She sniffed and wiped a tear away as it slid down her cheek. "She would enter a room and you could just feel her presence, like she was some larger-than-life hero. How does…"

Her voice broke as a sob threatened to tear itself from her throat. "How does she look so small now?"

She looked over to find Chakwas gazing up at her with an almost unbearably sympathetic smile. "That's the thing about putting someone up on a pedestal, my dear. They always seem so much smaller when they come back down again."

A twitch of movement from Shepard's bed mercifully distracted Liara before she could come up with a response. Her head snapped back towards Shepard just in time to see her fingers twitch once, then again, before her hands slowly curled up into fists. A moment later, her eyes slowly fluttered open, revealing her deep brown irises as she squinted up against the light of the med bay.

"Liara?" Shepard croaked, her voice hoarse.

Liara was by her side in an instant. "Cam?" she whispered, cupping her cheek with one hand. "Cam, can you hear me?"

"Liara," Shepard said again, this time with a smile that pulled at Liara's heartstrings. "Guess you saved me again."

Across the bed, Chakwas snorted. "Yes, and with no small effort on my part, I might add. I really don't appreciate you becoming quite so creative with your injuries."

Shepard chuckled, only to immediately wince and clutch at her chest. "I aim to impress," she groaned.

Liara slid her hand from Shepard's face, instead reaching for her left hand. In her chest, she felt oddly restless as her emotions wavered tremulously between worry and relief. "Now that you are awake, how do you feel?" she asked.

Taking her hand with a small smile, Shepard managed a shrug. "Like a big angry cyborg just used me as a punching bag." She shifted, grunting in pain as she forced herself to sit more upright. "Alright, doc," she wheezed, "what's the damage this time?"

Shooting her a disapproving glance, Chakwas nevertheless picked up a datapad from a nearby desk. "You've suffered a grade two concussion, two broken ribs on your left side, one of which punctured a lung, hairline fractures along the knuckles in both of your hands, rather severe bruising of the throat, and more minor lacerations, abrasions, and contusions than I care to count."

She dropped the datapad back onto her desk and crossed her arms. "All the minor cuts and scrapes were easy enough to treat, so those should all heal up nicely in a day or two. As for the rest…" She shrugged. "I've reinflated your lung and applied an adhesive to your ribs to encourage them to reconnect on their own more easily, but aside from that all I can recommend is to move as little as possible over the coming weeks. The concussion, however, is completely out of my hands. Short of injecting medigel or the like directly into your brain, you'll just have to recover the old fashioned way and hope for no lasting damage."

Liara gulped and began to wring her hands together, her heart sinking with each additional injury listed off. Shepard, however, simply shrugged with an unconcerned expression. "Right, well, thanks for gluing me back together again." She began to roll out one shoulder, then smirked. "Figure pieces of me'd probably be scattered across half of Council space if not for you, huh?"

"Shepard, this is serious," Liara admonished. "You very nearly died down there."

Chakwas nodded in agreement. "She's right, you know. There's no need to kill yourself trying to find the limits of my medical skills."

Shepard scoffed. "Alright, mom, thanks for the tip. I'll make sure to be extra good on the next mission."

Chakwas raised a brow skeptically. "Forgive me for saying I'll believe it when I see it."

Rolling her eyes, Shepard shifted to start scratching at the scars swirling up her left arm. "It's not like I ask to get shot at so much, you know? I'd be perfectly fine to have a whole mission go by with no one–"

She stopped abruptly, the humor draining out of her face in an instant. Frowning, Liara followed her gaze with a sinking feeling to look across the med bay towards-

"Garrus," Shepard whispered. "Is he…"

Chakwas nodded, her irritation towards Shepard seeming to seep out of her to leave behind a deep tiredness. "He'll live, don't worry, but…"

She sighed and rubbed at her eyes for a moment. "I won't lie to you Shepard, it was as close a call as I've ever seen it."

Peering across the med bay, Liara realized that if she had thought that Shepard was covered in bandages, then Garrus seemed to be consumed by them. A thin sheet covered him up to his waist, at which point his torso was blanketed by what must have been an entire hospital's worth of gauze and bandages from his waist up to his neck. Even from across the room, Liara saw nearly a dozen points where dark blue blood threatened to seep through the many layers of bandages, trailing all across his torso like some sort of nightmarish painting. His head was even worse, with nearly the entire right half of his face held immobile by a combination of gauze, tape, and staples. From the few bits of him Liara could see, however, she saw darkly glistening burns and the telltale peppering of shrapnel poking out from underneath the bandages.

By his side, Tali sat quietly in one of the chairs for visitors with one of his hands held gently between her own. Her chest squeezing guiltily, Liara realized she hadn't even noticed Tali follow her into the med bay. If she had felt terrible looking over Shepard's injuries, how must Tali be feeling looking at Garrus?

"How bad is it?" Shepard grunted, her voice lacking any inflection.

"Shepard, don't," Chakwas softly replied. "We can do this later if–"

Shepard cut her off with an angry growl. Turning to glare towards Chakwas, her jaw flexed angrily as she bit out, "I asked you how fucking bad is it?"

Liara's eyes widened as a dead silence filled the room. An overwhelming anger seemed to billow out of Shepard like a dark fog, corrupting her already nearly overwhelming personality into something unbearable. It was as if the usual sunny warmth of Shepard's smile had gone, replaced instead by a searing scowl that choked the room.

Chakwas, however, remained uncowed by Shepard's anger. With a tired sigh, she once again picked up her datapad and began to read. "Garrus suffered ten bullet wounds: two in his right arm, one in the shoulder, six across the torso, and one in his hip. Most of these passed straight through him, but two hit one of his lungs and the one in his hip nicked an artery before lodging in the bone. Finally, he suffered numerous severe burns and lacerations across his face from an explosive round that nearly took off a mandible."

She lowered the datapad to meet Shepard's gaze. "Honestly, it's a miracle that Garrus made it off that moon in one piece, much less alive."

Tali sniffled loudly, and with a pang Liara realized she must have started crying again. Shepard's nostrils flared at the sound, her whole body rigid as she clenched her fists tightly. The muscles in her jaw bunched and flexed, as if thoroughly chewing through the words she was trying to spit out, before finally she managed, "Will he fully recover?"

"It's too soon to tell, unfortunately," Chakwas said. "Other than the blood loss, for most of his wounds all he'll have to worry about is the scarring afterwards. I'm more worried about the damage to his lung and his jaw. If either of those heal improperly, it could be quite debilitating for the rest of his life."

She glanced towards Tali, still sitting with Garrus' hand in hers, and her features softened. "He will get through this, though, one way or another. All we can do for him now is to support his recovery, however it may look."

Chakwas' words washed over Shepard, her crackling fury seeming to drain away with each word. Instead, a cold emptiness seemed to take its place; Liara watched with growing apprehension as she stared towards Garrus with all the emotion of a marble statue. The only signs Liara could see of the anger still lingering beneath her skin were in the faint downturn of her lips and the slight furrow of her brow.

A hesitant silence crept back into the room, a nervous sort of quiet that felt like it may spook at any moment. After a moment, Chakwas seemed to decide that Shepard had no more to say, so she stood to move over to Garrus and began talking to Tali in a low voice.

Liara, now alone at Shepard's bedside, felt her unease begin to grow the longer Shepard sat silently beside her. Finally no longer to bear it, she reached out a tentative hand and rested it lightly on Shepard's shoulder. "Shepard?" she asked. "Are you alright?"

Shepard refused to acknowledge her, glaring stonily forwards like she hadn't heard her at all. Her concern mounting, Liara decided to try again. "Can you hear me? Cam, are you alright?"

At the usage of her first name, Shepard flinched like she had been struck. She glanced towards Liara for just a second, then returned to staring forwards. "It doesn't matter how I am," she eventually replied.

Liara frowned. "Of course it matters," she rebuked. "You are our leader, and all of us here care about you."

Shepard stiffened at her words, her scowl deepening as anger started seeping through the cracks of her expressionless mask. She opened her mouth to reply, then bit off the words at the last second to instead glare over towards Garrus.

Following her line of sight, Liara felt the gears in her mind begin to spin. Deciding to go out on a limb, she gently squeezed Shepard's shoulder. "It isn't your fault what happened to him. You did everything you could to help him."

Shepard inhaled sharply, her hands clenching the sides of the bed so tightly it began to creak. "He never should've been in that situation in the first place," she hissed. "I sent him on that mission, I let him go into a fight without me, so don't go saying that this isn't my goddamned fault!"

The cracks in Shepard's mask had shattered open, revealing fissures of blazing anger simmering under her skin. Doing her best not to quail at the sight, Liara hesitantly stated, "I understand how you feel, Shepard, but the galaxy is a dangerous place. Garrus knows this, as do the rest of us. As I have been told repeatedly at this point, we have all chosen this lifestyle together despite the risks we may face."

She leaned forwards, capturing Shepard's gaze with her own as she smiled sadly. "You are still just one woman at the end of the day. No matter how strong you may be, not even you can hope to fight off every threat in the galaxy all on your own."

Liara looked imploringly into Shepard's eyes, hoping to relieve some of her guilt through the conviction of her words. Instead, she found herself with a front row seat to the exact moment that Shepard's mask broke and all her pent-up fury came roaring out.

"Then what the hell is the point of me!" she exploded. "If I can't even keep my crew safe from all the dangerous shit out there, then I'm a fucking failure and none of this means anything!"

A pang of hurt lanced through Liara's heart, and with a stricken expression she found herself shifting away from Shepard. "You don't mean that."

"You don't get to tell me what I do and don't mean," Shepard hissed. "The last few days have been a goddamn shitshow and we all know it. Don't insult me by pretending any different"

Liara flinched, Shepard's voice cutting through her like jagged glass. She inhaled sharply, trying to curb the stinging in her eyes before it manifested fully into tears. On some level, she knew Shepard was simply lashing out, but Liara was finding it harder and harder to keep a clear head.

Clearing her throat of the emotion building there, she eventually began, "I know you carry a lot of responsibility on your shoulders, but—"

"Responsibility?" Shepard laughed, her voice painfully bitter. "What do you know about responsibility? All you have to worry about is solving riddles or finding fancy chunks of rock to show off at academic conventions." She crossed her arms, turning to stare back towards Garrus with icy glare. "If you mess up, your friends don't end up dead on a gurney."

A sob tore itself from Liara's throat before she could stop it, followed closely behind by a flood of tears. Her earlier guilt roared to the forefront of her mind, clamping iron bars of regret and pain across her brain. Tears streamed down her cheeks as her vision began to blur and her breath started to come in strained gasps. She buried her head in her hands, dimly aware that the conversation across the room had abruptly come to a halt. Sobbing again into her hands, she tried to wipe the tears away only for more to take their place.

"I can't do this," she moaned. "I can't… Oh, Goddess, I never wanted this…"

A sound that could have been Chakwas' voice called out towards her, but the meaning behind any words spoken simply passed her by. Her heart was a wounded beast, desperately trying to stay afloat in the waves of despair filling her up from the inside. She needed to get away, she needed to run, she needed…

Liara abruptly stood, throwing the chair she had been sitting on across the floor. Chakwas called out again, this time accompanied by Tali's worried voice, but Liara did not hear them. Still weeping desperately, she turned away from Shepard and instead ran towards the only safe place she could think of: the door to her little room at the back of the med bay, still open with her cot and workstation waiting where she had left it.

The door slid smoothly shut behind her as she ran inside, cutting off the harsh light and concerned voices of the med bay with a satisfying click. Now finally alone, Liara threw herself onto her cot, grabbed her pillow, and noiselessly began to cry in the dark.

---

Shepard watched numbly as Liara fled the room and slammed the door behind her. A brief swell of guilt swept through her, only to be swallowed up back into the dull haze of self-loathing clouding her mind. At this point, what was one more thing to hate herself for?

It isn't your fault, Liara had said, her words rattling around Shepard's skull. It isn't your fault, echoed another voice from a time long past, from a planet far from here; a voice that tore at Shepard's heart just to think about. Let go, Cam.

A shadow fell over Shepard, distracting her from her thoughts. Looking blearily upwards, she saw Chakwas looming over her with a scornful expression and the promise of a long lecture brewing in her eyes.

Shepard sighed, resigning herself to the inevitable. "Alright, doc, let me have it."

Sniffing imperiously, Chakwas' mouth curled into a frown. "That was rather abominable behavior from you, don't you think? Is this what we do now? Ridicule and insult our fellow crewmates after we've had a bad day?"

Dropping her head to stare at her hands, Shepard shrugged. "Guess so," she mumbled.

Chakwas scoffed. "Right, well, far be it from me to stop you from kicking someone while they're down. I'm sure there's someone on this ship you haven't harassed to the point of tears yet."

Shepard stayed silent, swallowing down a wave of regret that threatened to choke her. On its own accord, her right hand began tracing the scars on her left arm. Realizing what she was doing, she sucked in a sharp breath and yanked her hand away as deeply buried memories threatened to break loose. Even still, a pain so achingly familiar throbbed at her heart, pulsing in her ribs and feeling like it would rattle her apart from the inside.

She didn't realize that she had started to cry until Chakwas wiped a fallen tear off of her hand with a sigh. "Oh, Shepard," she murmured, sitting in the chair next to her. "Look at me for a moment, would you?"

Shepard looked up, blinking away the tears to see Chakwas regarding her with an incredibly soft expression. Reaching out to place a hand over Shepard's, she said, "Don't you go worrying about my feelings, alright? You aren't the first patient to yell at me, my dear, and I doubt you'll be the last. I understand that we've all been through quite the ringer on this job, and getting upset over something like that is only natural."

Her gaze sharpened, pinning Shepard beneath its intensity as she pointed towards the door Liara had vanished through. "That girl, however, deserves absolutely none of what you just put her through. Ever since she came aboard this ship, she has been worrying herself silly trying to find a way to blame herself for anything that has gone wrong for anyone. Except for you, she might be the best person I've ever seen at finding ways to guilt herself over the smallest thing."

She released Shepard's hand to lean back in her seat and gestured towards Garrus. "Now that something has happened, both to you and to Garrus, she has been inconsolable since you all came back aboard. I nearly had to sedate her just to pry her from your side while you were still unconscious, did you know that?"

Shepard sighed and shook her head. Once she had seen Garrus, the thick cloud of guilt around her had kept her from noticing nearly anything else at all. "No, I didn't."

"No, of course you didn't," Chakwas chided. "You were far too preoccupied thrashing yourself over Garrus' condition to notice how you've been hurting the rest of us."

Shepard nodded, shifting uncomfortably on her bed. She knew that Chakwas was right; ultimately, as the leader of the crew, it was and always had been her responsibility to keep it together when everyone else fell apart. "You're right, doc," she eventually managed. "Think I let this one get a bit too personal, looking back."

Chakwas shook her head with a gentle smile. "Allowing things to become personal isn't the issue, my dear. I've known you for years now, and I know that there's no one better at taking on the problems of others and making it your mission to solve their issues. If you somehow managed to stop feeling for those around you, I'd say you had been replaced by a poorly made imitation of the real deal."

She lay a hand on Shepard's arm once again. "I think this job simply took you by surprise, is all. I'd even go on as far as to wager it has reminded you of something that you'd really rather keep buried. Perhaps you weren't quite ready for that, but that's okay! Nobody on this ship expects you to be on top of every issue all the time. It's human nature to be taken off guard every so often."

Chakwas released her arm and gave Shepard a serious look. "Unfortunately, you and I both know that as leader of our little team, you don't get the liberty to break down whenever something does catch you off guard. Garrus, Tali, and all the rest of us need our fearless leader to guide us through when the times are tough, as they are now, and you're the one stuck with the job. Even Liara is relying on you now, more than I think either of you realize."

Shepard scoffed softly. "Liara doesn't rely on me. I'm just the hired muscle that follows her around."

Even as she said it, the words felt false in her mouth, and looking up she saw the skepticism spreading across Chakwas' face. "I don't think you believe that, Shepard, and neither does she. Liara looks at you like you hung the stars in the sky, much like how you pine over her whenever you think the rest of us aren't watching."

An uncomfortable energy began to pool in Shepard's gut as she scratched the back of her neck. "I don't pine," she grumbled.

Chakwas rolled her eyes. "Right, of course not. You only moon over her like a schoolgirl any time she enters the room."

Shepard attempted to smile through the discomfort building within her only for the expression to come out more as a grimace. Her earlier guilt around Liara had faded away a bit, only to mix with the embarrassment from Chakwas' teasing into something new; a sort of debilitating itch under her skin, a wave of unease that left her fidgeting in her seat and longing to escape this conversation as fast as she could.

After stewing in her own increasingly uncomfortable thoughts for as long as she could take, she shifted in bed and said, "Anyways, am I good to go, or are there more tests you need to run before I can get out of here?"

Chakwas fixed her with a shrewd expression, then finally leaned back in her chair with a sigh. "No, I've done all I can for you now. I'll need you back for some follow up exams in a few hours, but for now you may as well head out."

Shepard sat up as quickly as her aching ribs would allow, swinging one foot at a time onto the cold deck floor before Chakwas stopped her with a withering glare. "That being said, the next time I see you there had better be an excellent apology ready to go for our young researcher, or else I won't be so forgiving next time around. Understood?"

Shepard gulped nervously, resisting a sudden knee jerk reaction to salute. "Yes, ma'am," she replied.

"Good. Now be a good girl and get out of that bed for me. Tali still thinks I haven't noticed that gunshot wound on her leg, and I need to disinfect the room as much as possible before I take care of that."

Thoroughly chastened, Shepard allowed the doctor to chase her out of the med bay to find herself standing alone in the crew deck. Belatedly, she realized she still was shoeless and shirtless, except for the swathe of bandages covering her chest. With a sigh, she trudged across the deck towards her own cabin, wincing every few steps as either her ribs or her head twinged with pain.

Once inside, she mindlessly pawed through her locker to pull out one of her many assorted tank tops. Her head pounded as she gingerly pulled the shirt over her aching ribs, but whether the pain was from the concussion or her restless thoughts she didn't know.

The events of the day flickered like a slideshow behind her eyes as she sightlessly pulled on her boots. Every action ran through her head, every decision made and every punch thrown, hounding her incessantly in a fresh wave of pain. What could she have done differently? How could she have better protected her crew from Cerberus? Where did she go wrong?

Shepard's breath began to strain as the walls of her cabin seemed to close in around her. Liara's words repeated in her mind, over and over and over again until she felt like she might explode from the weight of them.

It's not your fault, Shepard.

Shepard was out of her cabin before she'd realized she had begun to move. As if with a life of their own, her legs had begun carrying her out and away, as if to outrun the storm brewing in her chest. She moved through the crew deck without seeing it, without feeling anything other than the pressure building inside her.

It's not your fault.

She was in the elevator now, gasping for breath as pain tore at her head and her heart. She didn't deserve to believe that, didn't deserve to be able to absolve herself of anything. If today wasn't her fault, then whose was it? Who else accepted this job from Liara all those weeks ago? Who else had pitted her friends up against a militant shadow organization?

The elevator rumbled around Shepard as her ribs groaned in distress. For a moment, all she could see was Subject 01 looming before her, their metallic weight crushing the life out of her while Eva Coré gleefully stood by and watched. Whose fault was it that Cerberus' top psychopath knew about everyone she cared about?

The elevator doors noisily slid open, allowing Shepard to bolt forwards. She needed to go, she needed to outrun these poisonous thoughts before they choked her out. Her lungs were straining, her heart was hurting, and all she could think was move. She needed to yell at someone, she needed someone to yell at her, just to bring her back to now.

It's not your fault.

She felt like an inferno, blazing angrily and torching everything she touched. What would it take for someone to smell the smoke and realize that something inside her was burning?

She stumbled suddenly as her foot caught on something loose on the floor. Blinking as she was forced back to reality, she looked around to see that she had somehow made it all the way down into the cargo bay. Before her sat the Mako they had stolen off Rayingri, still half-buried underneath a pile of crates from where they had left it.

Glancing down, she shifted her foot to see the large wrench that had tripped her laying on the floor, carelessly discarded by whoever had used it last. Beneath it, she saw a line of dark, dried blood trailing from the door of the Mako towards the elevator across the bay.

"Someone's gonna have to mop that up," Shepard muttered to herself, feeling more morose than ever.

The clang of metal hitting the floor startled her out of her thoughts before she could begin to spiral again. Frowning, she turned towards the sound only to once again hear a soft ping! ring out across the deck. She stepped out around the Mako, making her way through the haphazard sprawl of electrical equipment and spare parts until finding herself squeezed into one of the dark corners at the far end of the bay.

There she saw the tattooed figure of Jack sitting with her back to the wall, almost fully obscured in deep shadows thrown by distant light fixtures. By her side sat a bucket full of metal ball bearings, and every few seconds or so Jack grabbed another and lazily tossed it against an errant piece of scrap metal laying nearby.

Shepard's mouth twitched up in a vague approximation of a smile. Here was someone she could talk to without drowning in her own guilt.

She stepped further into the small space, leaning up against a large crate and casually crossing her arms. "Hey there," she drawled. "Getting all settled in back here?"

Not moving to look towards her, Jack simply shrugged and reached for another ball bearing.

Ping!

Shepard narrowed her eyes. "Right, okay." She glanced around the corner of the bay again, taking in all the hard surfaces, piles of scrap metal, and old oil stains every few feet. "You, uh, sure you don't want to come up to the crew deck? I could probably find a cot somewhere for you to sleep on if you wanted."

Jack shrugged again. "Nah, I'm good. I'm not a fan of lots of foot traffic, and this spot down here's dark and difficult to find." She met Shepard's gaze with an icy glare as she reached for another ball bearing. "Harder for someone to sneak up on me that way."

Ping!

"Uh-huh, sure," Shepard said at length. Her gaze caught briefly on a pair of dark bruises blotting out the tattoos on one of Jack's arms. Frowning, she quickly looked over the rest of what she could see of Jack in a clinical once-over; everywhere she looked, she saw cuts, scrapes and bruises to match her own.

Sighing, Shepard put up a hand to massage her temples. She really hadn't come down here looking for more responsibilities, but now that she had seen it there was no way to pretend that she hadn't.

"Look, you want me to go get our doctor to take a look at you?" she asked. "If you feel half as roughed up as I do, I know you could at least use some painkillers for those scrapes."

"No!" Jack hissed, her hand freezing before she could throw yet another ball bearing. "I don't want any fucking quacks playing at doctors stickin me full of shit, you hear me?"

Shepard blinked, taken aback by the acid in her voice. Raising her hands in a pacifying gesture, she hastily said, "Okay, fine, no doctors. Just thought I'd ask."

Jack glared up suspiciously at her, even as Shepar did her best to look both uncowed yet unthreatening. As the staredown continued, Shepard dimly had the sense that she was staring down a predator, just waiting for any sign of weakness to strike. How did this girl get this way? she began to wonder. Was she always like this, or did someone do this to her?

If she'd had any credits left for betting, she would've bet that the answer wasn't a happy one.

Eventually, Jack rolled her eyes and returned to staring moodily forwards. "Whatever," she grumbled, already reaching back into the bucket. "Just keep all your shitty teammates off me and we'll get along great."

Ping!

Shepard sighed, relieved to see some tension drain out of the conversation. "Are you sure I can't get anything for you? Water, or maybe some food?"

Jack stilled once more, her face twisting into a suspicious frown. "Okay, what the hell do you want from me, huh?"

Tilting her head to one side quizzically, Shepard shrugged. "Nothing, I just thought you might be hungry, you know?"

Jack's brows drew thunderously downwards, and Shepard knew that somehow she had picked the wrong answer. "Cut the bullshit," she snarled. "Just tell me what you fuckin want so we can get this over with."

Shepard frowned, feeling a headache begin to pound behind her forehead. "The hell are you talking about? Why would I want something from you?"

"Because that's how this works!" Jack exploded, flinging her hands into the air in a shower of ball bearings. "That's how this always works! Someone shows up, they start offering you some shit to butter you up or to be their little friend or whatever, and then before you know it they've fucked you and run before you realized your pants were down."

Shepard hiked up one brow. "I'm not trying to fuck you, Jack. I'd at least take you out to dinner first."

Jack was on her feet now, pacing the cargo bay with a wild expression. "I'm not joking around," she growled. "Everyone always wants something and they're always willing to screw over someone else to get it. I don't give a shit about how much of a goody two shoes you are, you'll be just like all the rest."

Shepard rolled her eyes. "Look, if I was trying to screw you over then why would I have fought with you against all those undead bastards instead of just making a break for it?" she asked. "Or why would I have kept your ass from falling into that chasm on Jiwai?"

Shaking her head doggedly as she paced, Jack replied, "On Jiwai you needed me and Miranda to help you find that shitty rock your girlfriend wanted. The pyramid was just self-preservation; we needed each other or else we both would've died."

Shepard scoffed. "Is it always this way with you? Everything has an angle attached to it, nobody doing anything just because it's what should be done?"

"Look, I didn't make the world this way, asshole," Jack retorted, her voice as jagged as a blade. "I just make sure that if someone's getting stepped on, it sure as hell won't be me."

Shepard sighed again. They could go round and round on this all night, but she had a feeling that Jack wouldn't budge an inch. She popped her knuckles in quiet contemplation for a moment, then decided to come at this from a different angle.

"Alright then," she began, "if everybody wants something from someone else, what do you want? What's your stake in all this?"

Jack paused mid-stride, then slowly turned to face Shepard. "What do you mean?"

Shepard shrugged. "You say everybody always wants something, right? Well, what do you want from me?"

Jack's brow wrinkled in confusion, her mouth falling open a bit in a perplexed expression. "I'm just trying to survive in whatever shithole I end up in," she eventually managed.

"I resent the implication that my ship is a shithole," Shepard blithely replied. "But seriously, there's gotta be something you want, right? Maybe that's something we can help you out with."

Jack's confusion burned away as Shepard watched, incinerated by the blistering anger that bubbled up beneath it. "You really wanna know what I want? You wanna know what you can help me with?" she asked, her voice low and furious. "I want to find every motherfucker in the galaxy with a Cerberus logo on them so I can flatten each and every one of them. I want to make every one of those shitstains that turned me into a fucking animal watch as I beat them to death with their own arms."

Jack's chest was heaving now, her teeth bared and eyes wide as she advanced on Shepard. "What I want," she growled, nearly shouting now, "is to find Miranda fucking Lawson and to rip her apart with my bare hands, one teeny-tiny piece at a time, until she has screamed and bled and suffered even a fraction of what I have!"

Jack stopped inches away from Shepard, her fists tightly clenched as errant sparks of biotics crackled around her arms. Shepard forced herself to stand her ground despite the alarm bells in her head screaming at her to disengage. The hairs on the back of her arms and neck were standing straight upright, and only with an extreme amount of self control was she able to resist the urge to flare her own biotics reflexively.

Slowly, painstakingly, Shepard inhaled deeply then exhaled again, allowing the tension building in her to bleed away. As she did so, the instinctual fight-or-flight response began to drain out of her, revealing the pity now swirling around and filling her up so much she thought she might burst from it.

"Oh, Jack," she murmured sadly. "What did they do to you?"

Jack's eyes bugged out even further, and for a moment Shepard thought she might finally take a swing at her after all. After a moment, however, she began to cackle maniacally instead. "Who did this to me?" she snidely repeated. "Who the hell do you think?"

The cold realization settled into Shepard's gut like a stone. "Cerberus," she said, already knowing the answer.

"Yeah, Cerberus," Jack spat. "Those bastards grew me my entire life in a lab like some shitty experiment. As far as I know, they could've squirted me out of my mom straight into a damn test tube."

She began to pace again, jamming her hands angrily into her pockets as she did so. "My whole childhood I was an experiment, like a goddamn guinea pig for them to inject full of shit or cut open for surgery. They'd lock me up and torture me just for shits and giggles, or they'd pump me full of drugs and sic me on random guards, all so they could make me 'the ultimate in biotic power' or whatever."

"A sword built for the hands of humanity," Shepard mumbled, recalling Coré's words. A low coal of anger began to smolder in her chest as she thought of the woman in charge of the Project Achilles. How many others just like Jack had she hurt to achieve her goals?

Jack snorted. "Yeah, some dumb shit like that. Whatever they called me, I was just some kid they tried to turn into their own personal attack dog." She grinned, a quick flashing of teeth in the dark. "Lucky for me, it worked. I busted out of there when I was sixteen and never looked back."

Shepard frowned, realizing for the first time just how young Jack looked. Even with all her tattoos, scars, and killer scowls, she couldn't have been much more than in her younger twenties.

"That's - that's horrific," she eventually said. "Nobody should have to go through that, I'm sorry—"

"Yeah? You're sorry?" Jack sneered. "Well fuckin save it. I don't need pity from you or anyone else, you hear me? I survived because I'm the toughest bitch out here, and no amount of pity is gonna help me with that."

Shepard sighed, sensing that this was all she was gonna get from Jack on this topic. She stood up from the crate she had been leaning on, rolling out her shoulders as she turned back towards the elevator. "Right, well, I should go. Food and beds are the next deck up if you change your mind."

"Wait." Shepard stopped at Jack's voice and turned to find her staring intently out of the shadows. "Are we going back after Cerberus? After Miranda?"

Shepard crossed her arms. "I don't know," she replied. Images began to flash behind her eyes once more as the guilt she had been avoiding reared its ugly head. Miranda being shoved into a shuttle, Liara running from Cerberus gunfire, Garrus bleeding out on a bed…

Shepard shook her head to dispel the memories and shrugged. "We got pretty banged up this time, and it hasn't been the only time someone's been hurt. I really don't know if it's worth risking it to go after Cerberus again."

Jack's lip curled in disgust. "Bunch of pussies, the lot of you." She derisively waved a hand to cut off Shepard's protests, sinking back into the shadows of the cargo bay as she called, "Look, either point me at Cerberus or drop me off at the next planet we land at. I don't really give a shit about what you do otherwise."

Shepard rolled her eyes. "Yup, I'll make sure to do that," she called. Turning back towards the rest of the bay, she made her way into the elevator and punched the button. "Good talk."

The elevator doors rattled shut and began to trundle upwards once again towards the crew deck. Shepard let out a tired sigh and leaned to rest her forehead against the cool metal walls. Wasn't the whole reason she had come down here to feel better? Instead, thoughts were swirling around her head a mile a minute as Jack's words hung over her head like a thunderstorm, leaving her feeling more conflicted than ever.

Are we going to fight? Are we going to keep throwing ourselves into the line of fire, again and again and again until someone dies? Shepard balled her hands into fists, gritting her teeth even as the counterpoint bubbled up from within her.

Who will get hurt instead, if not us?

The elevator rattled to a stop with a shriek, and a moment later the doors slowly pulled themselves open to reveal the empty crew deck before her. Across the way, bright light pooled from the now open door to the med bay.

Shepard sighed again. Here was one thing, at least, that she knew she needed to do.

She crept forwards to peek her head through the door, feeling oddly like a kid poking her head into her parents' bedroom. Inside, Chakwas sat at her desk with an open terminal before her, her fingers flying as she typed up a slew of notes. On the far side of the room, Tali was reclining in a seat next to Garrus' bed, a fresh bandage now wrapped around her left thigh. In her lap sat Garrus' hand, clutched tightly between both of her own.

Shepard blinked at the sight, then slowly smiled. If those two can figure their stuff out, maybe there's hope for the rest of us after all, she thought.

A pointed sniff from off to her left caused her to flinch. Looking over, she saw Chakwas now staring towards her, one brow lifted in a pointedly disapproving look. Sheepishly, Shepard did a little wave and took a step into the med bay. "Hey, doc," she haltingly began. "Just heading on through to, uh…" She floundered a hand vaguely in the direction of Liara's cabin. "You know, apologize and all that."

She fell silent as Chakwas continued to stare, clearly unimpressed. The silence began to stretch, leaving Shepard to stew uncomfortably under the doctor's glare, until finally with a roll of her eyes Chakwas relented and turned back to her own work with a wave of her hand.

Taking the opportunity to escape while she still could, Shepard quickly strode across the bay and came to stand up in front of Liara's door. Not allowing herself to hesitate for fear of giving up entirely, she reached forwards and softly rapped a knuckle on the metal surface of the door. "Hello?" she called. "Liara, can I come in?"

For a moment, nothing happened. Shepard shifted her weight from one foot to the other, resisting the urge to start popping her knuckles again. Belatedly, she realized she hadn't planned for what to do if Liara refused to see her.

Before she could really start to panic, the door before her unlocked with a soft click. Shepard stared forwards for a moment, suddenly pinned with indecision. Surreptitiously glancing over her shoulder, she saw Chakwas still typing away on her terminal, and a few feet past that the open door leading out of the med bay.

Shepard inhaled deeply, then shook her head and spun around to open the door. There would be no more running away on this day.

She stepped cautiously into Liara's room, hands clasped nervously together and her voice stuck in her throat. Glancing around, she saw that the already-dim lights of the room had been turned off completely, leaving only the light of a small lamp on Liara's desk to softly illuminate the space.

The door slid shut behind Shepard, making the room even darker as the harsh lights of the med bay were cut off. Squinting into the gloom as her eyes adjusted, Shepard swallowed and softly called out, "Liara?"

Across the room, a shape shifted atop the cot set against the far wall. Stepping further into the room, Shepard trepidatiously tried again. "Liara, can I talk to you?"

The shape shifted again, materializing into Liara herself as she slowly slid off the blanket she had wrapped around herself. Shepard's heart sank at the sight of her, taking in the tracks of dried tears on her cheeks and the puffy violet tinge to her eyes.

Liara sniffed wetly, then in a voice hoarse from crying asked, "What is it, Shepard?"

Shepard scuffed the floor with the toe of her boot, feeling her earlier conviction abandon her. "I, uh…" She winced, suddenly frustrated with her own cowardice. "I wanted to apologize for earlier."

"It is fine." Liara sniffed again, then wiped her nose with the back of her hand. "I understand why you were upset."

Shaking her head vehemently, Shepard took another step closer. "No, it's not fine," she insisted. "I let today get to me and I took it out on you. That's completely unacceptable, both as a leader and as your friend, and I'm sorry."

Rather than help improve her mood, Shepard's words seemed to cause Liara to crumple in on herself even more. "You do not have to apologize to me, Shepard," she whispered. "All of this is my fault, all of the violence and the danger and the injuries…"

Tears began to roll slowly down her face, only for her to quickly wipe them away with a corner of the blanket. "How could any of you not be upset with me?" she asked.

Shepard's eyes widened in alarm, and before she knew it she had strode forwards the rest of the way to stand at Liara's side. "Oh god, no, that is absolutely not what I meant," she said. She kneeled down next to the cot, waiting for Liara to make reluctant eye contact before laying a hand across her knee. "I do not blame you for this, okay? None of us do, so don't you go blaming yourself either."

Liara's brow furrowed in disbelief, prompting Shepard to squeeze her knee reassuringly. "Nothing that has gone wrong so far has been on you," she insisted, "and I am so, so sorry if I made you feel otherwise."

Liara shook her head frantically. "You and your team are only here because you all followed me on this mission," she protested. "All of the danger you have faced is ultimately because I asked for you to be here."

Shrugging, Shepard simply nodded. "Yeah, you're right."

Liara's face twisted into a surprised frown, clearly not expecting her to agree. Before she could respond, however, Shepard continued, "We're here because we decided as a company that we wanted to help you out and see this job to the end. Sure, there's been danger and angry people trying to shoot us and all that, but that's just part of the job for us."

Shepard watched as Liara digested her words, still clearly not believing her. With a sigh, Shepard shifted up to sit on the edge of the cot. "If we hadn't agreed to follow after you, odds are that right now at this very moment, we'd still be neck-deep in some dangerous shit, working for some untrustworthy people, and getting shot at just the same."

The corner of her mouth twitched upwards in a rueful grin. "Honestly, all this was just a matter of time. Since we're with you, though, we can say we're fighting for someone we care about instead of some asshole who couldn't care less if we live or die."

Liara stared towards her with an incredulous frown for several moments, before eventually letting out an explosive sigh. Leaning back to slump against the wall, she said, "I am glad to be your friend and to have a cause you support, but…" She began to fidget with the blanket still hanging around her shoulders. "Somehow I still feel guilty."

Shepard snorted. "Yeah, tell me about it. That's one part of the job that never really gets any easier."

A tentative, not-quite-comfortable silence crept back into the room as Shepard and Liara sat side by side. Liara stared down at her hands, clearly thinking over Shepard's words, leaving Shepard to stew silently next to her. She had come in here originally to apologize, and apologize she had. She flicked her gaze over briefly to take in the small frown on Liara's face. Clearly, something about the situation wasn't fully resolved yet.

Thoughts about a course of action began to bubble up in her, in tandem with the nervous energy percolating across her chest. Should she apologize some more? Should she leave Liara alone, or would that come across as rude? Shepard grimaced and suppressed a groan. Why was this so difficult?

"Shepard?"

Shepard flinched as Liara's voice shattered the silence. "Yeah?"

Liara chewed on her lip for a moment, a nervous expression on her face. "You said that you were not angry with me earlier."

"I wasn't," Shepard agreed. "I'm still not, actually."

A hint of a smile briefly flashed at the corner of Liara's lips before disappearing again. "But you were angry."

The statement was not a question, and Shepard found all she could do was tiredly nod along. "Yeah, I was."

A crease appeared in Liara's brow as she turned more fully towards Shepard. "Then please, help me understand," she said. "Who are you angry at?"

A bone-deep weariness settled across Shepard's shoulders. "Who am I angry at?" she repeated, her voice soft.

A slew of easy answers leaped to the tip of her tongue. She could have said that she was angry at Eva Coré and her metal monstrosity, or that she was angry at Cerberus as a whole. She could have said that she was angry at Garrus for scaring her shitless, or for convincing her to split up her crew in the first place. She could have said that she was angry at the Protheans for even constructing the Ring of Life at all and sending them all on this ridiculous adventure.

She could have said any one of these things, but none of them were the truth.

"I'm angry at myself, I think," she finally said in a small voice. "I let you guys down, and now you're all having to pay the price."

"Shepard, what are you talking about?" Liara shifted to lean forwards and place a hand on Shepard's shoulder. "How could you have let us down? Most of us wouldn't even be here right now if not for you."

Shepard shook her head, feeling the beginnings of tears start to prick in the corner of her eyes. "I messed up, Liara, don't you get it?" she asked. "I'm the leader of a mercenary crew, and at the end of the day it's my job to make sure that everyone comes home safe at the end of the day. All the decisions that get made, everything that goes right and everything that goes wrong, that's all on me."

She shifted her hand over to begin rubbing the scars spiraling up her left forearm. "Any time we take a job somewhere, it's my job to keep us all in one piece. Any time someone so much as takes a shot at my team, it's my job to make sure that those bullets don't land. Any risk we take, any dangerous maneuver or any tough fight, it is ultimately my job to take that all on me. It's a dangerous galaxy we live in, and it's my job to face it all so that you don't have to."

Her breath hitched in a sob, tears now streaming down her face. "But I wasn't strong enough this time," she continued. "I couldn't keep the people I care about safe from fucking Cerberus, and now you all have to suffer for it. I wasn't good enough, and now Garrus has a dozen fresh holes in his side, Tali nearly got a massive infection in her leg, and between you, me, and Jack we barely have enough bandages to patch up all the wounds on the ship."

She laughed then, a bitter sound that echoed around the walls of the room. "What's even the point of me if I can't even protect my own crew?" She sniffled sadly and wiped away a fresh set of tears. "I don't deserve you, any of you."

Falling silent after her tirade, she slowly glanced over to see tears on Liara's face to match her own. "Shepard…" she murmured sadly. "You can't protect us from everything in the entire galaxy. You are just one person, and no matter how strong or capable or incredible you happen to be, one person cannot hold the weight of the galaxy on their shoulders."

She peered deeply into Shepard's eyes, her own cobalt gaze unbearably soft. "Why put this on yourself? Why try to take on every risk and every injury when any one of us would gladly take your place?"

Shepard dropped her eyes to her hands, forcing herself to take in a shaky breath. Her hand continued to trace the scars on her arm, as if the repetitive motion could keep buried the memories behind the marks. An old ache began to swell in her chest like a long-lost friend; a pain she hadn't felt in years but knew she would never forget.

"I- I can't," she whispered. "I can't talk about it. It just… it hurts too much any time I try."

Liara deflated slightly, a disappointed look flitting across her face. "I understand–"

Shepard cut her off by covering one of her hands with her own. "I can't talk about it," she repeated, "but I think I could show you."

A furrow appeared in Liara's brow as she understood her meaning. "Are you sure?" she asked. "I would never want to force you to do that."

With a watery smile, Shepard nodded. "You're the best thing that has happened to me in a long time, Liara," she said. "You deserve to know what happened."

Liara smiled then, a sweet and beautiful smile that flashed briefly through her tears. Turning to face Shepard fully, she gently took her hand and moved it to hold it in her lap between both of her own. "If you are sure, then."

Shepard nodded, and after a moment Liara nodded back. Closing her eyes, she slowly exhaled and tightened her grip on Shepard's hand. "Embrace eternity!"

Shepard's vision went black as all sensation fled her, leaving just her mind in the empty void all around. Knowing what to expect this time around, she simply relaxed into the weightlessness even as the tendrils of another mind began to embrace her own.

Shepard.

Distant, glimmering lights began to appear around the edges of Shepard's consciousness as the orderly crystalline structures of Liara's mind came into view. A moment later, the familiar weight of Liara brushed up against her as they met in this neutral ground between souls.

Her voice echoed between them again, tinged with caution and sympathy. Whenever you are ready.

Alright then, Shepard replied. A bout of nerves flickered across her mind, and belatedly she wished she could still pop her knuckles in this mindspace. Here we go.

Together, her mind threaded through with Liara as a comforting weight, she began to reach back through her memories. Further and further back she tread, ignoring the growing sense of discomfort and powering through wall after wall of mental suppression. Liara deserved to know the truth, she kept reminding herself over and over. No matter how much it hurts, she deserves to know.

She swept past memory after memory, soaring above them without so much as a second glance. Unbidden, images began to offer themselves up as if they wished to be seen: Shepard shaking hands with Garrus for the first time, Shepard cashing in her first paycheck for a job well done, Shepard emptying her bank account to purchase some old wreck of a ship called Normandy…

The images began to sweep past faster as they traveled deeper into Shepard's mind, now barely lingering long enough to even be decipherable. She saw a flash of something distinctly red and distinctly krogan, followed by memories of countless fights, sparring sessions, and bar fights over the years. She saw biotic training sessions and bootcamp workouts, target practice and gunnery sergeants, all piled over one another in a confusing jumble.

Memory after memory continued to flash by, and belatedly Shepard realized she was essentially guiding Liara through her entire life. Was it just as confusing and overwhelming for her, she wondered, or did she have more experience? Were melds simply easier for asari, or did it not really matter?

With a mental shrug, Shepard realized it didn't really matter. She trusted Liara with her life, both past and present. If Liara wanted to see who she was, then she had nothing to hide.

Finally, with an almost anticlimactic lack of reveal, the two of them arrived at their destination. Shepard stared forwards, silent and unmoving, even as she felt Liara beside her gaze forward curiously.

Who is this, Shepard? she asked.

The ache from earlier pulsed through Shepard like the tide, echoing around the meld and sweeping over them in a wave of grief. Her name was Rosa Vasquez, Shepard finally said, and she was everything to me.

Two small children stood in the void before them, both young girls no more than ten years old. The one on the right was a scrawny thing, all elbows and knees covered by grimy clothes and a thin layer of dirt. She had a serious face, adorned with a world-weary frown and framed by glossy black hair pulled back into pigtails. Her rich brown eyes stared up at Shepard, just as warm and intelligent as she remembered.

To her left stood young Shepard herself, with messy dark hair, scraped elbows poking out from a ratty shirt, and the same crooked grin that Shepard knew she still wore to this day. She was small, smaller even than Rosa with no sign of the muscles she would develop later in life and skinny to the point of concern. Even still, she seemed to exude a boundless optimism that left Shepard feeling hollow to remember.

The two girls stood side by side, a matched set made of two complementary halves. Each held one arm out towards the other, and looking down Shepard saw that they were holding hands.

A fresh wave of grief surged through her at the sight, rattling dangerously through the meld. Forcefully, Shepard shoved down the emotion and attempted to center herself. She needed to get through this before she broke down completely, she realized.

We grew up together back on Earth, she began. Two street rat kids with no families and no future, just trying to make it work all on our own.

All around the children, shapes began to loom out of the void. A grimy street appeared below their feet, boxed in on either side by dingy apartments and cheap corner stores with cracked windows. As Shepard watched, the two children smiled and began to chase each other down the street, hiding behind dumpsters and splashing through dirty puddles lining the gutters. Their laughter, energetic and sweet, echoed around her mind like the sound of good times long since faded into memory.

We didn't have anything back then, she recalled. Just our names and each other, but even then…

She chuckled sadly, watching as Rosa finally caught the younger Shepard. The two kids squealed happily, their arms thrown around each other's shoulders with wide smiles splitting across their faces. Even then, that was enough for us.

A flare of sympathy echoed over from Liara, even as she watched on silently. Shepard winced, unable to allow herself to accept it for fear she would break. Still though, she continued, nothing lasts forever.

The scene around them began to change rapidly, the years flitting past in the blink of an eye. The two children before them sprouted upwards, their bodies rapidly aging from young kids into a pair of lanky teens. Shepard had grown rapidly, gaining enough height to stand slightly taller than Rosa now. Her hair, previously a tangled mess of dark hair, was now pulled back into a sloppy ponytail poking out from the back of a torn baseball cap. The frame of her torso had also begun to grow; her shoulders were now showing signs of the broad, muscular frame they would grow to be, accompanied by just the slightest definition in her biceps and forearms.

By her side, Rosa had grown too, if not quite as tall. Her silky black hair was tied back into a single ponytail now, wound around the side of her neck to hang down onto her chest. Her face carried that same wary expression, now tempered by a long-suffering grin reserved only for Shepard. Her arm was slung casually around Shepard's shoulder even with the slight height difference, looking for all the world like the two had been made to stand side-by-side.

Eventually, we figured out that we were gonna have to start making ends meet, Shepard explained. Only so much charity that two poor kids with no friends could ride on, so we took what we could get.

As she watched, a startlingly scarlet blotch appeared first on young Shepard's arm, then on Rosa's. As they watched, the blotches spread up across most of their forearms before resolving into a matching set of flames tattooed into their skin with a blocky number ten printed over the fire.

The 10th Street Reds, Shepard sighed. Just another run of the mill street gang looking to make a quick buck. Lucky for us, they weren't above recruiting kids if they could make themselves useful.

The scenery around them began to change. Night fell across the city street, and as the light faded Rosa and Shepard scrambled behind a nearby dumpster with panicked expressions. Moments later, sirens began to blare as shadowy, nondistinctive shapes of people with police badges and stun batons began combing through the streets just past their hiding spot.

The work was rough and almost never safe, but we really had no other choice, Shepard explained. The Reds paid us, put a roof over our heads, and most importantly of all gave us a family.

Other shapes began to appear behind the dumpster all around the two teens; shapes not quite as in focus as Rosa and Shepard, but familiar enough that Shepard felt a pang of nostalgia to see their silhouettes.

Yeah, she said, the Reds were good to us. Well, maybe not good, but better than anyone else had been. Still, though, even that could only last us for so long.

The scene changed once more, and as they watched the shadowy members of the Reds began to shimmer and disappear one by one. No one ever retired from the Reds, Shepard recalled as yet another member vanished before them. It was always just a race to see who would get to you first: the cops, or another gang. Either way, once something caught up to you odds were that you weren't getting back up afterwards.

Liara's presence shifted next to her, speaking for the first time since the memories started flowing. If no one ever retired, how did you manage to leave?

The dark street melted away, leaving Rosa and Shepard to stand by each other in the void once again. They had aged up once again, now looking to be a pair of scrappy young adults. Shepard had grown several more inches, leaving Rosa behind as she became the definitively taller member of the duo. Her hat had disappeared, revealing her dark hair to be shorn at the sides into an undercut. The muscles previously beginning to form had developed even further, leaving the arms poking out from a thin tank top with a good amount of definition and a healthy smattering of scrapes and bruises.

Rosa, while not growing upwards very much, had also apparently been hitting the gym. No trace of baby fat remained across her body, leaving her as lean and muscular as Shepard herself. Her hair was now tied back into an elaborate braid, falling down her back nearly to her waist in a stream of glossy black.

In this memory, however, a third figure appeared before them; a tall man with dark skin and a warm smile, wearing an alliance uniform and holding his hat in his hand. In the other, he extended a datapad with the words 'Alliance Recruitment' proudly displayed on the screen.

I got lucky, honestly, Shepard admitted. I ended up running into this guy in full military dress in the middle of one of my jobs for the Reds, just the worst thing I could've imagined back then. But rather than arrest my ass or try to stop me, he just shook his head and pointed me towards the nearest recruiting center for the Alliance. Told me that if I was gonna risk my life for people who didn't give a shit about me, I might as well help people while I was at it.

Shepard smiled then, the sadness swirling around her heart turning bittersweet for a moment. Liara responded with a smile of her own, clearly approving of this Alliance captain that had helped her. I take it you accepted, then?

Not immediately, Shepard replied. I only signed on about a week later, and only then after getting into this huge fight with Rosa over it.

Liara frowned. She did not approve?

She nearly attacked me on the spot when I told her, Shepard recalled. We had spent our whole lives hiding from the feds, whether they were cops or suits working for whatever government agency gives a shit about orphans loose on the streets, and here I was talking about signing up to go fight and die for The Man. She told me I was throwing my life away trying to be a hero and getting involved in things I had no business getting involved in.

A flash of wry humor bubbled over from Liara. I am glad to see that not much has changed, then.

Grinning, Shepard shrugged. I aim to be consistent.

Liara laughed, the sound echoing around the void surrounding them. She turned then, regarding the memory before them thoughtfully. After a moment, she asked, Did Rosa stay behind on Earth, then?

Shepard sighed, her smile fading away. No, she didn't.

The memory of the Alliance captain faded away, leaving Shepard and Rosa alone once again. The day before I was set to ship out, Rosa called me up to our favorite spot. Told me she had something important to tell me.

The dirty city street appeared before Shepard and Liara once more, looming out of the darkness like a ghost. This time, however, the perspective was from atop one of the taller apartment buildings as Rosa and Shepard sat beside one another on the lip of the building, their legs dangling precariously over the asphalt far below. Together, they looked out across the city towards the sunset in the distance, watching as the darkening sky turned the sprawling city below into a canvas of orange, pink, and purple.

She had gone and signed up with the Alliance without even telling me, Shepard said softly. Just up and demanded they take her and didn't take no for an answer. I remember she said that if I was gonna go try to be a hero, then there was no one else she trusted to pull my ass out of whatever fire I'd inevitably jump into.

Shepard and Liara watched in silence for a moment, basking in the warmth and affection radiating off the memory. Before them, the younger Shepard shifted hesitantly, then extended one hand to sit between her and Rosa. After several seconds, Rosa moved in turn to cover Shepard's hand with her own, never looking away from the setting sun in the distance.

She was always following me, trying to keep me out of trouble, Shepard said. She followed me into the 10th Street Reds, then to the Alliance, and then…

She faltered, her words choking on a swell of emotion. Then she followed me to Akuze.

A surge of images flashed past before Shepard could clamp down on them: Rosa outfitted in full combat gear with a suspicious frown across her face, rolling fields of rustling grass underneath a bright sun, the ground shaking and men screaming, pain lancing down Shepard's arm as a horrible bestial shriek rings out, a voice in her ear sadly saying, Just let go–

Shepard tore her mind away from Liara, ripping apart the meld in a desperate attempt to suppress her own memories. Sensation flooded back into her perception as her eyes flew open, and for several seconds she felt incredibly disoriented as the mental whiplash rattled around her brain from the sudden disconnect. Groaning, she clutched her head in her hands and closed her eyes again, miserably waiting for the room to stop spinning around her.

"I let her down," she murmured as the nausea began to fade. "She was always the survivor between the two of us, you know? She always was the one just trying to keep us alive to live another day while I was off throwing myself into any problem I could find."

She opened her eyes to find Liara looking towards her with a heartbroken expression. Inhaling sharply, Shepard wiped away a fresh set of tears and averted her gaze. "When it came down to it, though, Rosa sacrificed herself for me because I wasn't strong enough to save us both."

"Shepard…" Liara murmured, laying a cool hand on Shepard's arm.

Shepard shook her head angrily. "I made a promise on Akuze that I would never let anything like that happen ever again. Every day I'm alive, every mission that we drop into, I spend every moment of it trying to keep the ones I care about safe just to try to even begin to make up for what happened that day."

Hanging her head sadly, she sniffed loudly. "That's why I'm angry, Liara. The whole reason I'm alive anymore is to try to protect my crew, but I can't even do that anymore. I'm not good enough for any of you."

The hand on Shepard's arm tightened. "Cam, look at me," Liara whispered.

Looking up, Shepard blinked at the intense expression on Liara's face. "You have not failed us," she said. "You have never once failed us in all the time that I have known you, and I know that you did not fail Rosa either. Yes, some of us may have been injured, and yes, you lost someone you cared for very deeply back on Akuze. However, I have spent a lot of time around you now, and I know that in every situation you find yourself in you do more than any other person in the galaxy would do to try to keep their crew safe."

Her hand slid from Shepard's arm, moving upwards instead to gently the side of her face. "You did not fail your men on Akuze by not dying with them, Cam. Please do not think that you need to kill yourself trying to make up for that."

A fresh wave of grief welled up inside Shepard, and unable to hold back any longer she began to sob into her hands. As she cried, she felt Liara shift by her side before wrapping her arms around her in a comforting hug. Together, they cried quietly in the dark, mourning long-lost comrades and futures that may have been.

Shepard sniffled and wiped away a fresh set of tears, her breath still hitching from her sobs. "I don't know what to do," she confessed. "I want to keep going after Cerberus and after the Ring, but every time we do it feels like someone nearly dies."

She sighed, feeling her breathing begin to even out. "Even if we don't fight though, then they just go and hurt somebody else." Jack's face appeared in her mind's eye, twisted with hate as she revealed how Cerberus had raised her. "At least when we fought them, it was our decision. How can we just push that responsibility off onto someone who didn't ask for it?"

Liara smiled softly, the expression peeking out from behind her own tears. "I think you just have to do what you believe to be right, and then be willing to accept the consequences afterwards. As far as your crew is concerned, though, you do not need to worry. As I have been told by so many people recently, each and every one of us knows the risks of this lifestyle, yet we all choose to stand by your side anyways. We trust you, Shepard, and we would all follow you anywhere."

She shyly averted her gaze, ducking her chin slightly as she reached out to gently hold Shepard's hand in her own. "I am here for you, too," she said, her cheeks darkening slightly.

Shepard watched the blush spread across Liara's face, feeling her heart kick in her chest at the sight. Glancing downwards, she slowly intertwined their fingers and spent a moment just reveling in the sensation.

"What a pair we are," she finally said. At Liara's questioning look, Shepard's mouth curled into a rueful grin. "Seems we're both deadset on blaming ourselves for every problem in the world, huh?"

Liara smiled sadly. "Great minds think alike, I suppose."

Shepard huffed out a soft laugh, causing Liara's smile to widen. Rubbing her thumb across the back of Shepard's hand, she shifted slightly closer. "What do you think we should do then?" she asked. "Do we fight, or do we give up?"

Shepard sighed, leaning her arm up against Liara and thunking her head back against the cabin wall. "Giving up was never really an option, I don't think," she replied. "Someone's gotta stand up to Cerberus, and it may as well be us. Even if it kills us, at least we'll have done something."

She turned to look back towards Liara, humor dancing in her eyes. "Plus, I did promise to help you find that fancy magic rock of yours. A professional merc never goes back on her word."

Liara laughed softly, and Shepard felt her heart beat in time with the sound. "I am glad to know that The Shepherds keep their promises. After all, your website insisted that you all were quite reliable."

"God, not the website," Shepard groaned. "I knew I shouldn't have let Tali and Garrus design it without me."

Liara's shoulders began to shake with mirth. "I thought it was quite tasteful, honestly. Especially with the animated fire all over the page making it difficult to read anything."

Shepard nudged Liara's shoulder with her own, chuckling along with the joke. "Serves me right, I guess. Whenever we get some downtime, I might have to go do some rebranding." She exhaled deeply, turning back to stare out across the darkened cabin. "Just gotta stop Cerberus first somehow, I guess."

She turned back to see Liara peering thoughtfully towards her. After a moment, she nodded to herself, her mind seemingly made up. "Would you like to come home with me, Cam?" she asked.

Heat blossomed out across Shepard's face and down her neck in a dull rush as her eyes flew wide open. "Huh?" she managed to spit out after a moment.

The light blush on Liara's face exploded as a mortified look appeared on her face. "Oh Goddess, no, I meant–"

She laughed, the sound coming out a bit hysterical. "I meant, would you like to take the crew back to stay at my apartment in Serrice again? Just to lay low for a bit and perhaps see what we can scavenge from this operation of ours?"

Shepard barked out a laugh, feeling the tight bands of emotion constricting her chest begin to loosen, if only a little. The warmth suffusing her face, however, burned bright and strong to match the heat bubbling up through her torso. "Yeah, I think I like the sound of that."

Liara nodded, smiling as she did so. "I'm glad," she breathed.

Belatedly, Shepard realized that they had shifted close enough together that their faces were only a few scant inches apart from each other. In the dim lighting, Liara's dusky cheeks and open face seemed to glow with an inner beauty that left her breathless, matched only by her dazzlingly blue eyes. She swallowed thickly and licked her lips, watching as Liara's eyes tracked the motion.

Their heads moved closer together, as if acting out a dance they had learned by heart. Shepard's heartbeat thudded loudly in her ears, followed by a tingling anticipation that seemed to sweep across her whole body. Liara's eyes had closed partially, leaving them hooded as her head began to tilt to one side. Responding in turn, Shepard began to lean forwards to close the last distance, feeling herself drawn in like a ship stuck in a planet's gravity well. Closer and closer still she moved, finally moving in to–

"Joker," Shepard suddenly muttered, her voice frantic.

Liara froze, her mouth still slightly open and her face flushed. "What?"

"I know how we're gonna do it." Shepard grinned, feeling herself come alive with the thrill of energy that always came with a good plan. "I figured out the whole thing, I gotta go tell Joker to turn us around."

Liara frowned, looking equal parts frustrated and confused. "Shepard, wait–"

Shepard leaned forwards, cutting her off by planting a gentle kiss onto her cheek. "You're a genius, Liara," she proclaimed, then quickly stood up from the cot. In only a few short strides, she made her way across the room and opened the door to allow the bright light of the med bay to pour back inside.

Stopping in the doorframe, she suddenly turned back over her shoulder with an infectious grin. "Couldn't have done it without you!" she called.

She then spun on her heel, and with that same giddy energy still percolating inside her she ran off to go hunt down her pilot, leaving Liara to sit bewildered on her cot.

---

A/N: the girlies are really going through it this time, huh? i really didn't expect this story to get this emotional back when i started it, but here we are i guess! anyways as always these more emotional chapters are always excruciating to write and terrifying to publish, but i did my earnest best and that's what its all about, right? hope you all enjoyed this one, and since im no longer being forced to work six day weeks at work anymore i might even get the next chapter out before 2024 lmao. see you all in the next chapter!