CHAPTER 11

The Cabin

Liara stood alone in the Normandy's elevator, silently contemplating how best to confront the missing quarian. After searching the medbay, the crew quarters, and the bridge, Liara went to the only other part of the ship she thought Tali would hide out in. The loft. Not only was the loft one of the most secluded areas of the ship, but it also happened to be Shepard's own private quarters.

Of course thats where she'd be. She thought to herself, feeling a small but noticeable pang of guilt.

She had come up to the loft with the intention of not-so-gently reminding Tali that there was still work to be done. But in Liara's haste to get repairs back on track she realized she hadn't really stopped to consider just how hard the news of Shepard's death might be hitting her. Liara didn't have to guess how hard though, for she herself had gone through this all before.

The asari had a tumultuous past with Shepard. She had first met the commander while she was excavating a prothean ruin on the backwater planet Therum in the Artemis Tau cluster. Liara was alone at the time, which wasn't really unusual for her. She typically preferred the solitude. The quietness of the vast, empty prothean ruins gave her mind the space and peace she needed to think and theorize. That, and her social skills were more than a little lacking, due in no small part to Liara spending most of her relatively short life with her nose buried deep inside a variety of archeology textbooks. But that time, she truly regretted being alone.

During her survey, a cadre of geth, led by a rather large krogan, had infiltrated the digsite and attacked her. Rather than outfight them, she tried to outsmart them. Believing she had found an ancient prothean security terminal, Liara input several commands to try and fend them off. Instead of scaring off her attackers, she managed to get herself stuck in a prothean stasis bubble, and was completely unable to move.

As she struggled against the alien energy that had held her firmly in place, she saw several figures slowly approach her. One was shaped like what she thought was a krogan with two other vaguely humanoid shapes flanking it. Thinking her synthetic pursuers had finally cornered her, she braced herself for the worst, but was surprised when the shapes turned out not to be geth at all. In fact, one was a human. A human male wearing black armor, with red and white stripes coursing up his right arm and shoulder. A man with steely blue eyes and a small scar cutting into his short military cut black hair. The first human spectre: Commander Shepard.

After a little light puzzle solving, and a decent amount of destruction, Shepard freed Liara, and the two of them managed to escape a rapidly collapsing digsite with only moments to spare by fleeing on his impressive ship: The Normandy.

She was surprised to learn that Shepard finding her was no coincidence. In fact, he was searching for her. He needed her help to find the Conduit. A mysterious alien artifact that the rogue spectre, Saren, was planning on using to bring the Reapers back into the galaxy. Liara didn't hesitate to join him. At the time, she firmly believed that she joined up to help save the galaxy and learn more about the mysterious prothean disappearance along the way, but in truth, she was somewhat intrigued by the human. And for the longest time, she didn't quite understand why.

The hunt for Saren and the Conduit lasted months, and during that time, Liara and Shepard had grown close. But as their relationship bloomed, Liara feared that their mutual attraction would get in the way of their mission, so she pushed him away. That changed in the days leading up to the final battle against Saren and his reaper master, Sovereign, with Liara finally throwing caution to the wind and giving in to her desires. They remained together in the months leading up to Shepard's untimely death at the hands of the mysterious Collectors.

Due to their long lives, the death of a mate was something that all asari would inevitably have to deal with. But Liara was young, and she wasn't prepared for the sudden and unexpected loss of the one who ended up being her first. She settled into a depression soon after, struggling to return to her life as an archeologist as the pain of Shepard's death and the looming threat of the Reapers weighed heavily upon her. Despite the multitude of evidence she and Shepard had provided them, the Council refused to take the threat seriously and instead of preparing for an inevitable invasion, they opted to do nothing. In her eyes, Shepard's sacrifice had become meaningless, and what hope she had for the future, quickly faded.

That is, until the Illusive man, the shadowy director of Cerberus, approached her. Unlike the Council, the Illusive man believed in the threat of the Reapers, and was committed to pouring all of his tremendous resources into stopping them. He made it clear to her that Cerberus would do anything to protect humanity, including the impossible, like bringing Shepard back from the dead.

He revealed to Liara that Shepard's body had been recovered, but it was held firmly in the clutches of one the galaxy's most dangerous and mysterious beings: The Shadow Broker.

So he made her an offer. Retrieve Shepard's body from the Shadow Broker, and give him a second chance at life. Liara knew to be wary of Cerberus, since Shepard and her had managed to stumble upon several of their horrible experiments during the hunt for Saren. But if working with Cerberus meant there was even a microscopic chance of bringing Shepard back, then she would do it gladly.

So she began the hunt. After many narrow escapes and desperate battles, she managed to retrieve Shepard's remains from the Shadow Broker, but not without a cost. A drell named Feron, who had helped her track down Shepard's body, had been captured by the Shadow Broker's agents and was taken away where she couldn't find him.

Liara became enraged and for two years she had focused on nothing else but getting revenge against the Shadow Broker and finding her lost friend. The hunt ultimately consumed her, and she became obsessed with finding the unfindable.

Without her ever realizing it, Liara had changed. Changed to the point where when Shepard did eventually return to find her, he could barely recognize her. The awkward and naive scientist he had fallen for, had turned into a secretive and ruthless information broker. Rather than joining Shepard on his mission to stop the Collectors, she had spurned him and even tried to use him to find the Shadow Broker and his agents. This frustrated and angered Shepard, and he left her to continue on with her obsessive hunt.

It was during this time that Shepard grew close with another.

The door to the elevator opened with a swish and Liara stepped up to Shepard's door. She reached out a hand to key in the open command, but hesitated, unsure as to what she'd find when she entered the room. Images of Tali curled up on his bed and weeping alone in the darkness of the cabin flashed through her mind and slowly melted away the residual anger she had built up towards her friend.

She played out multiple imaginary conversations quickly in her head, trying to think of the best way to console a grieving friend and convince her to come back. Everything from crying, to laughing, to even shouting at each other. All of them seemed ridiculous, yet possible all at the same time. After a few minutes of thinking in silence, Liara gave up.

No more waiting. I can do this… she thought, taking a deep breath.

Swallowing nervously, Liara keyed in the open command and stepped into the loft. The room was dark, save for the eerie blue glow emanating from the fish tank. She breathed a slight sigh of relief when she saw that the fish tank was wholly intact, with its many fish swimming carelessly from one end to the other only stopping to eat the food that would rain almost weightlessly into the tank from the automated feeder above.

Well at least there's one thing on this ship that doesn't need fixing.

She looked over to his desk on the opposite side of the room. It had not been so lucky. Shepard's prized collection of model ships had jolted loose and lay in pieces at the bottom of their display cabinet. Papers, laptops, and other tools had been thrown from their spot and were strewn about on the floor.

She chose her steps carefully as she walked, trying to avoid the various debris that littered the cabin floor. But still, much to her annoyance, she somehow managed to step on what she thought at first was a datapad. She reached down to pick it up and blinked in surprise. It wasn't a datapad, but a picture frame. The screen was cracked but Liara could make out the image of a young, smiling woman behind it. The woman had wavy black hair that flowed down just past her jaw line, fair skin, bright, almost glowing white eyes, and two distinct lines that arced from her eyebrows and disappeared past the top of the hairline on her forehead.

Is this…?

It took her a few seconds before it finally clicked in her overworked brain.

Tali?

Liara was more than a little surprised. Despite knowing her for several years, Liara had never seen her face. No one had. Except for Shepard, that is. She had seen maskless quarians before. One of the perks of being a scholar and the shadow broker meant that she had access to materials and vids most didn't. But to finally see the face of her friend behind the mask, well, Liara couldn't help but gawk.

While studying the face in the picture, the difficulty of Shepard and Tali's relationship came into focus. Quarian's weak immune systems meant that intimate contact with another person could be dangerous. If one was unlucky, even fatal. So whatever contact they did have with one another, would have to be limited. Tali needing to wear her suit at all times meant that Shepard would rarely be able to truly see her. Liara mused that this picture must be Tali's way of overcoming that problem.

Liara unknowingly put on a warm, endearing smile as she secretly realized that she was one of the few people to know what Tali really looked like. A fact Liara couldn't help but savor.

Quietly, Liara strode over to the desk, brushed aside some of the debris with one hand and respectfully placed the picture down. She was about to turn away and head further into the room when something shiny on the desk caught her eye.

Shepard wore a sentimental smile looking down at the gift Liara had given him, and she beamed with pride watching his eyes brighten.

"I thought I'd never see these again," he said as he rubbed his thumb over the raised lettering stamped into his old SR1 dog tags.

"They changed hands more than once," she admitted. "Do you remember Admiral Hackett? He gave them to me so I could return them to you. He sends his best, and hopes you're ok."

Shepard shook his head in disbelief as he brushed away paper work on his desk and set them down.

Liara starred, unblinking, at the small metal dog tags now resting in the palm of her hand. The gift she had given him after helping her on the fateful day, the day she had finally found Feron and gotten her revenge on the ones who took him. The day she ultimately became what she hunted.

After all their time apart, it was the only token she could come up with to give him after his return. A small piece of who he was. A reminder of who they both were before Cerberus and the Collectors changed everything.

"So… how are you doing, Shepard?" she asked in a warm voice. "I mean really. Not what you tell your squad to keep morale up."

Liara was surprised to see Shepard's hopeful smile fade and a look of tired sadness settle in his eyes. A look that she couldn't recall ever seeing on the typically steadfast human. "Between you and me…" he said leaning back against his desk. "I have no idea how we're going to do this. I've done everything I can, but-"

"You've done more than most," she interrupted, trying to steer him away from the self destructive thought. "You and your team destroyed the Collectors, and walked out alive."

Shepard gradually put on a faint but noticeable smirk, which brought a smile back to Liara's face. "Well… we fought them in their own base and won. Guess they can't call us 'young or primitive' anymore."

Liara took hold of his hand , leading him away from his well organized desk and over to the lounge where he had a few drinks already prepared and waiting for them on the table. "Young? I'm only 108. 109 in a few months," said Liara.

Shepard chuckled. "I should get you something nice," he said, offering her one of the glasses.

"You're alive again," she said before taking a small sip of the fragrant wine and delicately placing it back upon the table. "I've got everything I want. So tell me what you want. What are you fighting for?"

The silence of the room became deafening and Liara's brain finally noticed something was off.

She spun around and looked to the far end of the room and blinked in surprise.

Liara was alone. The room was empty except for her and the fish.

She stood dumbfounded for a minute. Liara had felt so certain that this was where she would find the wayward quarian.

Normally, Liara would've turned and immediately marched toward the elevator to continue her hunt for her quarry, but for now, her feet refused to budge. For the first time since they landed her thoughts no longer dwelled on the ship, the crew, the shuttles, or Tali. All she could think about was the question.

What are you fighting for…

She already knew the answer to that question, even before she had asked him those many months ago, but still it haunted her for reasons she didn't care to admit.

The weight of the dog tags felt heavier than ever, and without realizing it she found herself slowly walking over and sitting down on the edge of Shepard's bed, eyes fixed on the small pieces of metal resting in her palm.

Slowly she wrapped her fingers around the tags, tightly closed her eyes, and as if he was standing right beside her, Shepard's answer rang clearly within her head.