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Liara stepped into the elevator cautiously, ears straining for any sound. Shepard was silent where she crouched against the wall, her head bowed low enough that Liara had trouble discerning her expression. Her hair was loose and rumpled more than Liara had ever seen it.
Her hands were shaking. A wave of loss swept over Liara, and her resolve steeled.
“Shepard?” She interjected, keeping her voice low. She stepped inside, mindful that any of the ship’s passerby wouldn’t be able to spot either of them at a glance.
The head of her commander snapped up. Her eyes looked wet, but she hadn’t exactly devolved into a crying jag. Perhaps Liara interrupted her before she could get there, or perhaps the wound was too old to be so raw. Liara didn’t know which she would prefer. She’d only discarded the helmet of her armor, which laid forlorn on the ground next to her.
Shepard wiped her eyes against her forearm, getting to her feet hastily.
“Sorry,” she muttered, reaching for the elevator button in apology, “did you need to get to the cargo bay?”
Liara stopped her with a hand on Shepard’s wrist before she could hit the button. This placed her further into Shepard’s personal space than she intended, but it felt right somehow. A beat passed, then two.
She watched Shepard’s fingers curl reflexively, as if to close herself off. Those inquisitive gray eyes of Shepard’s fell on her face. Her nose was red.
‘She’s probably a splotchy crier.’ Some part of Liara thought abruptly, remembering how her roommate at university would turn violet when she cried at quarian drama vids on their couch. Some part of her wanted to curl around her usually optimistic commander at the image.
“I’m sorry,” Liara said, her words rushed, “I couldn’t help but overhear your conversation. With Talitha.”
“That’s understandable.” Shepard said at once, placating. Always placating. Her eyes darted away, as if she was losing herself in the memory. “You and Garrus were with me, after all. That was really something, huh?” She breathed out through her nose, troubled. “Talitha’s been through a lot. I hope they can actually help her.”
Liara bit her lips, letting Shepard’s wrist go gently. Better not to make her feel excessively trapped or intruded upon. “I agree. But, are you okay, too?”
Judging by her wince, that seemed to be exactly the question Shepard was trying to avoid.
“I’m fine.” She said after a beat, though her eyes went to the door to check for–a hasty retreat? An excuse to duck out of the conversation, possibly, or at least further eavesdroppers. But avoidance wasn’t Shepard’s way, and Liara almost felt bad for exploiting that.
Shepard looked uncomfortable, but there was a certain energy under it that spoke to a need for expression.
“It’s been a long time for me, Liara. I’ve come to terms with what happened to… what happened on Mindoir. I went through biotic training, I enlisted. I climbed ranks. There’s distance. Talitha hasn’t gotten that chance.”
Liara felt the words shape in her mouth for only a moment before they slipped out.
“You don’t have to be grateful for your experience.” She said, only cringing at the condescending undertone afterward. “That is to say: Shepard, I understand that you lost a lot that day, and at a young age. Reliving it must have been stressful.”
She received a slight shake of the head at that, and to Liara’s alarm, Shepard’s eyes seemed to get wetter. Her nose wrinkled at the effort of keeping it in, and she exhaled shallowly.
“Maybe in my office?” She said, quiet and exhausted.
Liara nodded, stepping back to allow Shepard to pick up her helmet and lead the way. They passed only two officers in the middle of conversation on the way to Shepard’s office. Kaidan gave them a hesitant nod, looking between them in puzzlement before his eyes fell on Shepard’s expression, whatever it looked like. He looked away.
In a moment’s time, Liara stepped into the room and listened to it hiss shut after them. The stiffness in Shepard’s shoulders dropped abruptly, and she dumped her helmet on the ground. Then she leaned against the wall like she’d done in the elevator, sinking to a heavy crouch.
“That was thirteen years ago.” She said, disbelieving. “I was sixteen. Talitha… her story easily could’ve been my story. But instead I’m here. What right do I have to complain?”
Liara shook her head. “You said you lost everything that day. Your family, your friends. Your life as you knew it. You were a child, Shepard. If that’s what you call luck, the rest of the universe must be very bleak.”
“I don’t know,” Shepard said softly, her mind clearly miles away, “that’s not how I see it.”
“That’s alright.” Liara replied. She couldn’t imagine the same kind of devastation ever happening to her home. To her mother, despite her apparent complicity in Saren's activities, or to the people she’d grown up with, cruel as they sometimes were. The thought alone made her stomach roil with unease, and Shepard had survived it, surmounted it, even. “But I’m here if you want to talk.”
Shepard nodded, wiping at her eyes again. “The part that we had in common was...” She took a shuddering breath then, and wiped at her eyes more violently. “When she was talking about what happened to her parents, I remembered that too.”
Her face crumpled when she admitted that. Liara remembered Talitha’s words, the imagery stark and desolate in their violence, vividly fresh even to an outsider.
Shepard must have been a teenager when it happened, certainly old enough to commit every detail of the tragedy to memory. The confrontation with Talitha could’ve done nothing but ripped the old wound open. And Shepard had stayed strong throughout, telling the girl everything she could think of to help her move on.
Shepard couldn’t seem to contain it anymore. Tears spilled from her eyes, down her face no matter how much she tried to wipe them away. “It was like seeing my own memory through someone else’s words. My parents, they fought it, too. They were just farmers. And I haven’t thought about that, about them, in years.” Her hand was over her mouth then, breaths deep and unsteady through her open fingers. “There was no point.”
It occurred to Liara during the conversation that Shepard might have watched her own parents die, torn apart by gunfire while trying to protect their daughter. The confirmation made her feel hollow. Liara found no virtue in trying to come up with words.
She closed her eyes for a moment, sheer sympathy rolling over her in waves. Then, she stepped closer, knowing that being near somebody gave her comfort when she felt alone or desolate. When Shepard had freed her from the Prothean device, being near her had made warmth curl in every cell of her body, chasing away the edge of fear and panic that consumed her in the hours before.
Seeing that Shepard showed no signs of rejecting her presence, Liara gingerly pulled her into a hug.
She rested her chin on Shepard’s shoulder, feeling fresh tears splash against her cheek. She could do nothing but rub the woman’s back, the way her mother had done for her, hoping she could soothe the pain even fractionally as much as Benezia could.
Liara was young and awkward, and being around Shepard made her tongue feel clumsy, her heart skip beats. But Liara wanted to help, and she wasn’t flustered about that.
“I’m sorry, Shepard.”
The earnest tone of her voice made Shepard’s fingers cling to her waist, her chin digging into Liara’s shoulder in response. Her shoulders shook under Liara’s careful grasp, and Liara continued to rub circles into her back with utmost patience. Shepard seemed to allow this for only a few moments more before she let go. Liara took that as her cue to step back, touching Shepard’s arm briefly.
“Thank you.” Shepard said after a while, wiping her eyes and cheeks again. She seemed more sedate than before, and Liara burned that there was nothing more anyone could do about it. Shepard smiled at her, though it was watery. “I always refused to talk about it, obviously.”
“Obviously?” Liara echoed, tilting her head. Shepard shook her own, offering a brief shrug and a cough, as if clearing her throat.
“They always want you to talk about it.” Shepard said, by way of explanation. “The… doctors, or the social workers. Whoever was handling cases like mine.” She laughed at that, not bitter but close to it. “I was sixteen when the slavers attacked. The last thing I wanted to talk about was what I saw on Mindoir. I knew I was lucky to get away, and I resented that. I devoured any information about what happened to the colony that day, to the people they took, after that. But there wasn’t much, and none of it made me feel better.”
Liara nodded, biting her lips again. This was obviously something Shepard needed to get off her chest, and it made her feel validated to have these details shared with her. Shepard visibly fumbled with the next bit, as if she wasn’t certain where to go from there, unpracticed as she was.
“I… you know, it was a relief when the biotic thing happened.” She said this with a smile, laced with irony as many of her remarks were. “It felt like people could focus on something else about me.”
“I’m sure it gave you something else to focus on, as well.” Liara offered, and Shepard nodded, rubbing the back of her neck.
“Yeah. For what it was worth, other people were going through the eezo stuff as well. Other people who were getting implants, who were training. God, I wasn’t the only one.”
The process of biotic implantation in humans was understandably alien to Liara, though she noted that she would like to ask Shepard or Kaidan about it at a more appropriate time. She wondered at the painfulness of the procedures, performed on teenagers who had been sparingly exposed to element zero on a handful of occasions, rather than the constant exposure that all asari on Thessia experienced.
Shepard seemed to consider this manipulation a blessing, and Liara couldn’t blame her for it.
“It is comforting to undergo experiences with precedents, rather than those where you must forge ahead alone.” Liara conceded, remembering how isolated she had felt when she chose to study Prothean archaeology. Shepard turned to her, possibly remembering the same thing.
A smile crossed her lips, the first genuine one that Liara had seen from her since the confrontation.
Shepard reached across the space between them and squeezed Liara’s hand once, her still-armored hand heavy against Liara’s.
“You’re a good friend.” She said firmly, pulling back to brush the hair on her left side behind her ears again. It had fallen in her face, the dark shade of red glinting in the cabin’s low light. Warmth bloomed in Liara’s chest at Shepard's compliment, and she ached to fix the right side for her as well. She stayed her hand.
They still stood close. Liara took a chastened step back, tucking her hands behind her back.
“I am always here if you wish to talk.” She said, reaffirming her earlier statement. “Truthfully, I feel a bit… young in comparison to you, sometimes. But I want you to know that I respect you very much, Shepard. You have seen and accomplished things that most could only dream of. No one can argue any differently.”
Shepard blinked at that, her face falling into the carefully neutral expression it assumed when anyone even vaguely mentioned her illustrious military career. Elysium. “It's good for my thirty-one years, you mean. It’s been alright, I guess.”
“You’re a third of my age, but there’s something about you,” Liara said with a vehemence that seemed to surprise Shepard, “something that makes people believe you’ve got it all figured out.” She paused to laugh at the loud snort Shepard emitted. “Well, I may be partial to you anyway. You’re demonstrably one of the few humans who would humor my clumsiness and my involvement in all of this.”
That made Shepard shake her head. “I don’t humor you, I like you.” She responded at once. She seemed oblivious to the azure flush that stole across Liara’s cheeks. “You’re incredibly gifted, and you offer vital insight into this Saren business—which I haven’t remotely figured out, for the record.”
“Well, no one has.” Liara admitted. “Though, the point is: I think you are much more than a summation of your past. We all do. But I know today was hard for you.”
Shepard nodded, the picture of sober thought.
“It was. I don’t like thinking about that part of my life at all, if I can help it. I haven’t really taken time to dwell on it since I was a moody teenager.” Shepard heaved a sigh, fidgeting with the straps across her waist. “I guess it’s not something you ever get over one hundred percent, so I never saw the point in reliving it all the time.”
“I believe some part of that is called repression,” Liara said wryly, “but I suppose you’re allowed it.”
Shepard rolled her eyes, pushing off the wall she had been leaning against and straightening her posture. She very quickly reassumed the visage of a confident commander, as if the emotional breakdown of the moments past was well and done with. Her shoulders went up and back, the posture effortless to the untrained eye. Liara watched with a leftover tinge of sadness, only to meet the appreciative warmth in Shepard’s eyes.
“You know… I think part of the reason I don’t like talking about Elysium is that I only enlisted to stop things like that.” She said, the admission raw with nostalgia. “I was powerless on Mindoir, and I wasn’t on Elysium. I’m not powerless anymore, and I never will be again. It feels right to have strength, and to use it for things like that. The commendations are kind of beside the point.”
Liara nodded, gratified to finally understand Shepard’s unease with the issue. “That’s understandable.”
Her reply drew a shrug from Shepard, who was clearly settled enough about the issue that she didn’t need validation. That quality was something that made Liara feel a certain kinship with the commander, who did what she needed to do and never took opposition on the matter to heart. Her mother had called her stubborn a million times, but Liara knew that Benezia was proud of her hard edges.
‘Little wing, don't let anyone forget that your feathers are steel.’ Benezia would say, amused. Liara wondered what her mother would think of Shepard.
It was presumptuous of her, but Liara felt the same kind of pride for Paige Shepard, an Alliance marine. Even the non-humans on her crew knew her as a commander with the spine of a hardened krogan, and a considerate soul to boot. Shepard had the hearts of everyone from Kaidan to Tali to Wrex in her hands, and Liara couldn't find it in her to worry that they'd be crushed.
“Really, Liara. Thank you.” Shepard said again, interrupting Liara’s thoughts. “Just let me know if you ever need to talk either. I know you’ve got a couple things that need unraveling too,” she joked, “and I’m always listening.”
The solemn bit at the end was almost redundant, at that point; Shepard had already proved that time and time again.
Liara smiled, hoping that the tender connection forming between them would last. Seldom had she ever experienced a friendship that felt so natural, so comforting. She suddenly wished she could be there to hold Shepard whenever she felt that pain that she was clearly capable of harboring. At the same time, she hoped against all hope that Shepard never had to feel it again.
“I know, Shepard.” She straightened herself out as well, brushing imaginary dust from her armor. “I… should let you get back to your duties.”
Shepard grinned, a certain light returning to her that Liara was happy to see. She took that as their cue to exit the commander’s office, and continue their work. She parted ways with Shepard outside the cabin, heading for her room off the medical bay and allowing Shepard to catch up with a visibly concerned Lieutenant Alenko. (And then, ostensibly, the rest of the crew.) She didn’t look back, content with what had transpired between them.
This mission with Shepard was the most frightening thing Liara had ever experienced, for all its scope and its danger. Still, Liara had never felt more committed to anything.