Shepard didn't squirm or murmur in her sleep; aside from an occasional twitch of relaxing muscles or a soft puff of breath, she could have been mistaken for a corpse. It was downright eerie, and several times Liara had to stop herself from roughly shaking Shepard awake just to be certain she hadn't slipped away quietly.
The silence weighed heavily on her; sometimes she imagined she could hear others approaching in the distance, howling for blood. It was all a conjuring of her overwrought mind, she knew: adrenaline, exhaustion and the sun's heat combining until she couldn't tell dream from reality. It would all have been so much easier to cope with if Liara had the assurance that she could simply wake up.
Unfortunately, the images playing through her mind were very real. She had killed a woman today, deliberately and brutally, that it had been a product of fear and shock was cold comfort. Worse yet, she didn't feel as guilty for it as she rightfully should. All she could think of was getting home, being safe, then she could puzzle out what had happened and how she was supposed to feel. At the moment, she was just too numb, and Shepard didn't seem to be doing much better.
Liara was shocked to find some part of her found satisfaction in that; it felt like some sort of justice. She had been taken from her family, Shepard had just lost hers, she'd spent days wondering what would become of her, now Shepard would be intimately acquainted with that feeling herself.
Her stomach roiled at the thought, but she was grateful to have someone that could understand her circumstances now. Benezia wouldn't understand, for all that she had been in her fair share of peril, Liara knew 'defenseless' was the last word anyone would use to describe her mother. Until recently, she would have said the same of herself; now she knew otherwise. But now Shepard would know; she would know what it was to see all the warning signs and still be unable to escape her fate. And she would probably blame herself every bit as much as Liara was, if not more.
Ten minutes Shepard had said, but it was nearly sixteen before Liara composed herself enough to reach out and touch her shoulder, shaking gently. She very nearly shrieked when Shepard's eyes shot open immediately, assessing their surroundings before she began to stretch.
"You sure that was ten minutes? It felt more like five."
"Seventeen, now." Her voice was steady and mellow, nothing like the hoarse scream echoing in her mind. Goddess be thanked for small mercies.
"Damn." There wasn't much force behind the curse, and Liara wondered at the fatigue still plain on Shepard's face. Not that she had much opportunity, the next moment Shepard was on her feet and collecting their belongings.
"You should've woken me when I said. Ten was bad enough. Twenty could kill us."
"Then we had better walk, hadn't we?" Liara sniped. Her eyes were burning with tears she couldn't shed, and for all Shepard seemed to think she was the only one with a right to be tired, Liara had never been so weary in all her life.
Shepard fixed her with a worried eye, noting the tension in her face and her skewed stance. Liara only straightened her shoulders and met Shepard eye for eye; this was not the time to confess weakness.
"Ready to run?"
"Yes." Of all things, that sent a tear sliding down her cheek. She tilted her chin, daring Shepard to comment; for once, the woman did not, instead taking off at a brisk jog Liara was sure even she could not sustain for long.
They traveled in silence save for the crunch of gravel and panted breaths. Liara sorely regretted the sip of water she had permitted herself when they first settled down; now the liquid was determined to come back up and it was all she could do to breathe past the stitch in her side. Shepard didn't seem much better off; her face had reddened quickly and despite her efforts the longer they ran the clumsier her feet became. She wouldn't stop running though, not when her boots began to snag on exposed rocks more often, not even when Liara began to slow her stride, running just behind her to keep her own strength up.
"Shepard, we need to walk."
"Run 'til your breath evens out. Your body gets used to it."
Liara would have resented her for the lack of breathlessness if it weren't for that little hiccup at the end of Shepard's words that suggested this wasn't as easy as she pretended.
In time though, she found her breathing had normalized and the stitch eased so that keeping pace was no longer such a trial. And of course, Shepard chose precisely that moment to revert to a brisk walk.
"I can still run." Now that they were walking again, her whole body was demanding it.
"We have a long way to go. Run then walk. Three minutes to our next jog."
"I thought you said we needed to make up for lost time?"
"Which is exactly why I can't have either of us collapse from heat exhaustion. It sneaks up on you, and we just can't risk it." Shepard shielded her eyes with an impatient hand, glaring at the sun. "I want to try to make it to a checkpoint sometime this evening."
Liara swallowed the lump in her throat; home by evening, in time for a true bath and a proper change of clothes- she could be sleeping in her own bed tonight. Shepard might as well have promised her heaven.
She had just opened her mouth to ask for a more precise time when Shepard took off again, lengthening her strides into a much more graceful lope. Swallowing her words, Liara hiked her bag farther up her shoulders and followed.
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Even well into her Matriarch years, Aethyta was forced to concede that Benezia looked good in uniform. She had opted for synth material as opposed to the leathers favored by so many of the young bloods and boots that laced neatly up her ankles, blending well with the charcoal shade of her outfit. It bothered Aethyta to see her unarmed, but a bright flare of biotics reminded her quickly that Nezzie always did her best work without a weapon. Not that it stopped her worrying.
"You're sure you don't want me along? If this goes to shit-"
"I will handle it appropriately. You are most useful here." The same mantra she had been hearing on repeat since they had made for their quarters. It was no more reassuring this time than it had been the last dozen or so.
"I still think it should be me." Aethyta grumbled, reaching out a tentative hand to clasp Nezzie's shoulder, "I've been doing this longer than you have, and I'm smarter about it now too."
Benezia caught her hand, squeezing too-cold fingertips just shy of pain, "I raised Liara. I encouraged this, I sent her here. It is only natural that I should assist in bringing her home directly."
"Now who's letting emotion cloud their judgment?"
A purse of the lips was her only response; Benezia glanced in the mirror, examining her appearance for any obvious flaws.
"It's fine if you're still not taking any weapons. I have a discrete side-arm you're welcome to-"
"I thought we had settled that to our satisfaction. My biotics will be sufficient."
"And if there are dampening fields?"
"These are upstarts, not an organized army. There will be no dampeners, there will be no advanced weaponry." And in Benezia's mind, that would be the end of it. It would be left to Aethyta to worry, fret, and plan for every eventuality. Over these last days she had developed a new respect for Nezzie's patience, never could she have tolerated the waiting games her bondmate had always taken for granted.
"Fine. Be safe." Aethyta allowed her hand to fall, debating the wisdom of leaning in for a final kiss. It was good luck according to the Human tradition, and they were on Earth after all so it should hold true-
Benezia's gentle sigh said her thoughts had not gone unnoticed. After centuries as one of the Asari's most famed diplomats, there was very little that escaped her eye. Aethyta started when Nezzie stepped into her, catching her face in gentle hands and pulling her in for another kiss. Years she had gone without this, and now three in roughly as many days? It was enough to make her wonder how she had got by all this time on her own.
Not stopping to think, Aethyta allowed herself to catch Benezia about her waist, pulling her in those final inches until there was no telling where one body began and the other left off. A few seconds more and she made herself pull away, resting her head against Nezzie's as they used to; for a moment at least, nothing had changed.
"Listen, once we get Liara back and this whole mess is over, do you think-"
The door's chime cut her off; Aethyta would have been content to ignore it a few seconds longer and get her words out, but Benezia had already stepped away, welcoming the intruder with an air of relief. "Chief Williams, are you prepared?"
Ashley nodded, taking in their quarters with an assessing glance. Aethyta scanned her too, noticing the new body armor and a sling across her back where her rifle would doubtless rest. At least someone would be armed; it was more of a weight off her mind than she would ever have admitted.
"Corporal Toombs is waiting on us. I told him I'd return in seven minutes max."
"Then we will not keep him waiting."
Aethyta knew her part in all this. She followed them from the room, always lagging just a few steps behind. Ashley turned and caught her eye, gesturing off down the opposite corridor. "Kaidan will be waiting for you in ops."
She knew it for a dismissal, Williams had already turned back, confident the hint had been taken. If she were even fifty years younger, Aethyta might have taken that for a challenge. Now she was too anxious to do more than turn her steps in the direction indicated, marching off to bark orders and raise hell. If only it weren't her estranged daughter and bondmate's lives on the line, she could have tricked herself into playing it like the bad old days. As it was, Aethyta found she had no taste for war games, not when they were so very personal.
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Alenko already had the district maps pulled up on the holo-map when Aethyta arrived at op-cen. The blinking light had to be Ashley's company; bio-readings scrolled across a small screen, heart-rate, respiration… she located Benezia's immediately, reassured by the even tempo. Riding off into battle and Nezzie's pulse was still within normal bounds. Figured.
"The green zone is where we expect to find T'Soni. I managed to pry a few details from our patient over the last hour; Shepard is losing her grip on these people. They're scattering."
Aethyta hoped it hadn't been a civil conversation."Liara?"
"We'll need to find her quickly. If they splinter up into factions there's no telling where they'll all end up. It would make tracking difficult, to say the least."
Shit. "Exactly how many guests are we expecting?"
"He wouldn't say. Normally not more than a dozen, but infiltrating the Atrium would take manpower. And with all this… it's impossible to calculate. Hope for a handful, prepare for a regiment."
"Did you pull that line out of your basics manual? Send one of your lackeys down to press that bastard harder and get an estimate." If she had just given Benezia free rein they would have all the information they needed and then some. But no, she had been more concerned with protecting the Asari image and making sure Benezia didn't land her ass in a Terran prison. Henceforth she would leave diplomacy to diplomats, Aethyta vowed.
"They're working on it, trust me." Alenko muttered grimly, "Half the problem is keeping him conscious for more than a few minutes at a time. The other half is having to explain where he is before he'll talk; he hasn't hardly got a short term memory and half the time he doesn't know the answers himself."
Aethyta's eyes flickered back to the screen, "And you still think sending in a team this small is the best answer?"
"Hence the small team."
Aethyta chose to ignore the heavy irony. At the moment, she wanted to be the one out there so that when she found that fiery-headed imp she could give her a taste of Krogan justice. Perhaps it was just as well Benezia had taken her place.
"Don't you have a man in the cells? What's he saying?"
"He doesn't know much. They were setting charges away from their camp when all this started; Shepard had them bracing for trouble."
This wasn't taking them anywhere but circles, and Alenko was looking at her with the sort of annoyed patience Aethyta had always reserved for snobs and the underage morons who thought they had accomplished something by getting past the door. The comparison wasn't terribly flattering.
"What do you need from me?"
Alenko glanced down to his handheld, frowning as he adjusted something beyond her view. "Nothing, ma'am. Now we play the waiting game."
Wonderful. Aethyta talked over to steal a chair from an unoccupied desk, rethought herself and perched on the desk instead, practicing the deep breathing exercises Benezia had always favored when she had a moment to herself. It did nothing for her temper, but every silent breath was a sarcastic remark she bit back and between the two coping mechanisms she knew which one the Humans preferred.
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A.N.
May this be the shortest chapter I ever write.
I think I owe an explanation for that unbelievable hiatus, but I'll keep it brief. The academic mess kind of hit the proverbial fan and I think this fic took the brunt of it since it's what I was mainly working on at the time. Now that I finally have my credits sorted, I am in the middle of writing a thesis, so everything is coming slower, but I promised myself I would post this Saturday regardless of the shape it was in. That means it's half the length I intended and still reads like clunky dialogue and exposition.
Fortunately, I'm combing through past chapters to fix exactly that, so this one will be on the docket soon.
With any luck, I'll have it edited and a proper chapter to follow that wraps up this arc by next week. As it is, I have three essays and an intro due this week that I haven't even started, so take that with a grain of salt.
Thank you everyone for your patience and encouragement! :)