An hour later…

"Wrex."

"T'soni."

"I'm curious. You send young krogan on a Pilgrimage…"

Wrex nodded. "After they finish their Rite." He cast her a sidelong glance. "But you knew that. What else do you already know?"

Liara inclined her head. Her contacts among the krogan were growing, but at the time it had taken careful digging to learn as much as she had. A welcome challenge for an information broker in peacetime. "The Pilgrimage was your idea. Several clan chiefs thought you were trying to destroy krogan culture. The shamans called a summit to stop half the clans from rebelling…"

She folded her arms, peering at Wrex. "…and after the meeting, the dissenters wanted to go on Pilgrimage themselves. How did you convince them?"

A flash of anger flitted across his stony features. "Who the hell are your contacts?"

"You know better than to ask that, Wrex. Especially publicly."

Wrex scratched his head. "If it's Korvek, I'll kill him," he growled, but he seemed distracted. Or even…if she didn't know him any better, Liara might've thought he looked embarrassed.

She waited.

"Well…I wanted to just knock a few heads around. Maybe shoot one of the fools. Worked well enough in the past. So I…but when I…Bakara said…what is it with her and reason, anyway? She wanted me to…explain to them."

She had to cover her mouth to suppress her giggle. "Well, as the Shadow Broker, I can vouch for the power of mere words. And I'm sure your recent Assembly appointment had given you the…tact required."

A krogan scowl was a fearsomely ugly sight. "Yeah, but…krogan aren't…hrmph." This time she couldn't contain her amusement, drawing a glare from the ancient battlemaster. "Anyway…I told them about a young quarian I knew who went on a Pilgrimage. How she ended up on Shepard's crew, killed more enemies in three years than most warlords in three hundred, became the pride of her people…you understand."

Fascinatingly sentimental logic for a krogan, even one as soft as Wrex could sometimes be, though of course he would deny it if she mentioned it. It was…touching. "Tali would be flattered."

If anything, Wrex looked even more embarrassed. "It was her idea, really," he grunted, a hint of approval in his rumbling voice. "You remember what it was like – we'd won at Earth, sure, but…"

Liara sighed, her own memories rising to the surface. "I remember. The old Council races wanted desperately to return to the old days, but no one else would hear of it."

The asari had been particularly vocal, much to her dismay…though not, perhaps, to her surprise. Former leaders of galactic civilization, handpicked by the Protheans, original discoverers of the Citadel…even homeless and weak, hers was a proud race. And then later, when they'd discovered her own father's heroics during the Citadel siege, that one of their own had stood up to a Reaper...

The academic in her had been anxiously fascinated, though. "The status quo had almost killed us all, but changing it meant changing our cultures. Meant changing everything. I take it your people didn't appreciate that either."

"Few races had it as bad as we did. Alright, yours had a long fall, but you recovered in time." A deep breath, a pause as Wrex visibly collected his thoughts. "My people had always known war, but suddenly there were no enemies left to fight. The genophage had been cured. The turians called us heroes, brothers, warriors. Only a faction of salarians still hated us, and no krogan will ever forget the sacrifice that gave us a future. Where did we go from there?"

His face crinkled into a broad smile. "Tali faced the same question. The geth helping instead of shooting, and all that. She mentioned, soon after we won…hmmph. Must've been three months after she retook Thessia. You fought there, didn't you?"

Liara nodded absently, her chest tightening with fondness for her quarian friend. Garrus had masterminded the retaking of Thessia (and of at least thirty other worlds), but it was Tali who had led the ground forces that stormed the asari capital.

"Well, she talked about keeping the Pilgrimage for the quarians. Something about paying homage to her journey. Didn't take a genius to figure out what…who…she was really honoring."

Warmth. Unchecked, unfiltered. So that's why he's so embarrassed. When I tell her, she'll blush ~ her pale human cheeks filling with that beautiful red ~ and smile at Tali's gesture, crack a joke about Wrex growing soft.

"And I'll be varren shit if I ever let a quarian show me up."

And some things never change.

"She'll appreciate both gestures, Wrex. If there was one thing she -"

"How is she?"

She'd been ready for the question, had expected it – if anyone was to ask, it'd be Wrex, the most blunt, the most hardened – but it still shut her up. Too abruptly.

Dammit. He'll notice.

Sure enough, Wrex was staring. "No evasions, T'soni," he growled softly, his eyes glittering. "The truth. What did she sacrifice for us? What is she suffering now?"

Her first instinct was to brush him off, to spare him the knowledge as she'd done for a quarter-century…but Wrex deserved to know. For all Shepard had done for the galaxy, she had done so much more for her friends, and they had done so much in return. Liara had tried, for all their sakes, to keep Shepard's struggle hidden…but even the Shadow Broker could keep her painful secret no longer.

Not from friends. Not from family.

Either the Presidium's reservoir was misting her cheeks, or she couldn't keep her anger in check.

"She still hears them."

Silence.

"When it's quiet, when I'm by myself…no, that's not right. I'm never alone, not really. They're always with me, always watching, always whispering. But you know this already, don't you. I'm rambling, aren't I?"

Three melds in one day. Three melds, and still the source of her love's agony remained out of reach. "I think I should try to purge the Cipher. It was given to you by an indoctrinated asari, her meld would've passed that to you as well. And then there are the Prothean visions, the beacons were built long after the Reapers' invasion had begun so they might have been integrated with Reapers signals, and then when Saren used them there could have been neural feedback, that would explain—"

A hand on her wrist, a weary smile, stunning blue-green eyes full of both love and horrible, horrible pain.

"Liara."

Tears welling up, choking her, her heart clenching with frustration-guilt-horror at her own failures but she had to go on, she had to remove, would remove Shepard's terrible burden. "I'm so sorry, I don't know what else to do, I've poured everything I could into gathering information but there's nothing, just nothing, nobody who knows anything we don't already—"

"Liara."

Shaking, uncontrollable shaking, she had to be strong, if only for her, but she couldn't, just couldn't, nothing she could do, how was she supposed to—

"I can face them."

Slapping Shepard's hold off her wrist, tears streaking her cheeks. "No you can't, I can read your mind, Shepard, when we meld I am you, and each time the pain is nearly enough to drive me mad, how can you possibly handle—"

Shepard hugged her.

The dam broke.

After a time, they drew apart. Shepard spoke first. "I think after a couple decades I know what I'm doing, no? And I'm still here."

Liara shook her head. "Always you ask me," she whispered. "Always you ask me to accept that you have a thousand dead gods in your head—"

Shepard gestured at the viewport, at the vast black canopy dotted with light. "See that?"

She would not play this game. Would not.

"Are you going to make me say it?"

She sighed. "You're going to tell me anyway."

"It would be insensitive for me to tell you that you're no fun," Shepard murmured, her theatrical sigh taking just enough of the edge off to keep Liara from exploding. "Planets, love. Stars. Places we haven't been, haven't explored. Discoveries to make. Hell, you still don't even know what's going on with—"

"Don't do this to me." Goddess, this woman was infuriating. "The pain you're feeling—"

"Fucking blows, yeah." Liara snorted in spite of herself at the crudeness of Shepard's interruption.

"When we meld, that you have to see my pain cuts me more than they ever could," Shepard said, her gaze drifting only to snap back with a sudden grin. "But it works both ways. What you feel for me, I can see it. I can feel it. What do the Reapers have that matches that?"

Somehow, despite the tremble in her voice, despite the glitter of madness that lurked in the foundations of her smile, Shepard's expression was heartbreakingly warm.

"Do you remember what you said before Earth? How easy it would be for a single ship to get lost up there? To leave everything behind? That's us, here, now. They can chase me, but they will never drag me down."

Liara stared, her anger draining away as it always did. Only Shepard could admit to perpetual flight, to riding the razor-thin wave of madness, with such determination.

Sitting there, massaging the hands of her suffering lover, it seemed like all Liara could do was trust Shepard. Trust her strength, her endurance, her heart.

She hated that all she could offer was a weak smile…but it strengthened when Shepard's face lit up like a sun.

And Liara could once again try to forgive herself.

"I…okay." She took a deep breath. "Okay."

Soft lips brushed her forehead. "Then rest. I'll set our course for Matano. I still can't believe we spent a total of forty minutes on Chasca last time. Damn Saren..."

"T'soni."

Liara blinked.

Wrex was standing before the statue a few yards away, his back to her. "I guess you've got the real woman, but for most of the galaxy this is the only Shepard we have."

Slowly, her limbs heavy and soft in the aftermath of her memory, she stepped over to join him. It wasn't a question, so she held her tongue.

"Not much to look at, being human."

Her eyes narrowed.

He glanced at her and chuckled. "Tough, though. Durable. And whoever carved that expression deserves a raise. She went through a lot. Suffered more than any fifty people put together."

Liara swallowed past the tightness in her throat. "She's suffered enough."

Shaking his head, Wrex laughed. "She could have stopped at any moment. Said it was enough, resigned herself to the reality of her situation. Every krogan did it, even me. Gave up."

His red eyes glowed. "Who do you think suffered more?"

"Wrex, she experiences more pain in a year than you have in your entire –"

"With her conviction intact." Wrex's expression burned halfway between a grin and fierce awe. "There was never a warrior like her, and there never will be again. When she said something, did something, she meant it. She didn't just talk, didn't just fight, didn't just believe. Any fool can believe. She won, and she did it without losing that inner fire. Sounds to me like she's still got it."

"I—"

"She knew the risks she took. Better than anyone, even you. Didn't stop her from taking them."

Surprised, Liara stared at the aging krogan. Several long seconds passed before she could find her voice. "She once told me you would understand her better than anyone."

"Smart human." His stare was direct, knowing. "Then listen. Every warrior has a choice, makes a decision. She made hers. Honor that as the galaxy does. As the krogan do."

He looked up at the statue once more, his voice a reverent murmur. "As I do."

She wanted to protest, but he was right. Maybe Shepard was right, or maybe she was wrong, but it wasn't Liara's call to make.

Alright, Shepard…if taking on the burden you carry…if that was your choice, all yours…then mine is to never let you be forgotten.

Dark steel gleamed proudly in the Presidium's gentle light. A fitting tribute to the legend who'd chosen to give everything, the woman who'd heard the Reapers' whispers but refused to listen.

Ten thousand years later, when the galaxy had prospered and declined a dozen times over, people still mentioned a name. Their elders told a story, a tale woven from ancient human records and turian proverbs, from quarian rituals and geth memory, from krogan legends and asari time capsules.

They told, and they remembered.