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“Just tell me what to do.”
Time had become a distinctly fluid concept. A detached, analytical part of Shepard’s mind tried to count the shallow breaths, or the heartbeats roaring in his ears to get a sense of the true length of the eternity for which he and Liara simply stood there, staring intensely into one another’s eyes. Both pairs so blue. Born decades and light years apart, the paths they had walked through life to bring them together could not have been more different, and yet… they moved, spoke and thought as though their minds danced to the same unheard music.
Liara’s eyes unfocused, and Shepard felt… no human language has a word for it. For now it was distant, like a crowd of people all talking together over the next hill, but it was coming closer.
Relax. Open your mind. The susurration of the crowd recombined itself into the words, in Liara’s voice, that spine-tingling alto that had been among the first things about her he had fallen in love with. Behind the words was the thought, an object lesson in how one goes about opening one’s mind, exactly. Shepard did his best to comply, letting thoughts and memories rise to the surface of his awareness in bubbles of free association.
If you open your mind too much, your brain will fall out. He felt the critical thinker’s wisecrack appeal to her analytical mind, watched a slideshow of fools either of them had known unspool across their collective awareness in a nanosecond, and let the bubble burst.
Lizzie. Shepard felt a spasm of panic as his excuse for a track record with the ladies rose up before their joint mind’s eye, then relaxed, though not without perplexity, as he realised Liara had summoned the memory on purpose. God, I sounded so pompous, Shepard thought as they watched him coach Lizzie through a math problem in his bedroom back on Mindoir. She leaned in unnecessarily close to peer at the line in the textbook he had his finger on. And still I was oblivious: Shepard remembered the knowing look in his mother’s eye as he’d announced that he and ‘young Elizabeth’ were going to his room to study. He remembered how he hadn’t understood the look that passed between Mom and Jen: how his big sister had given vent to a bark of laughter that elongated itself unto a chuckle at the confused expression on his face. Finally Liara hit paydirt: Shepard’s lips met hers as he remembered how Lizzie had eventually just had to make a desperate grab for his face and dive in. The memory shattered, shards flying in all directions, but the kiss remained.
From here on they were both busking it; no memories to guide them. Liara’s lips were cool, her mouth drier than a human’s, with a unique tang. They both had a reason to know that tongue was a thing in the theory of kissing, and they made tentative essays and forays into the practice. By contrast, a certainty that bypassed Shepard’s conscious mind — and so went completely unaffected by any nervous paralysis — took control of his arms: they wound themselves tightly around her waist, incidentally pressing her body against him in a fashion unaccustomed that they both suddenly found sensually delightful, but mainly in an expression of hectic determination. I have let someone in. This time I shall not lose her.
Shepard realised that the crowd had arrived from over the hill. Liara’s eyes had turned black, and he was in the midst of her awareness. He remembered her bafflement when she first noticed the irresistible pull of their mutual attraction, her hectic and desperate need to disentangle her growing feelings for him from the strains and tempests of the hunt for Saren, and the profound depth of her appreciation for his patient forbearance.
He’d been sure his growing obsession with her had been written all over his big stupid face, she discovered, and in a burst of warmth and humour her hands slid back along the line of his jaw, and crossed each other behind his neck as she put her arms around him and drew him in close in her turn. He bent down, straightaway to rest his forehead on hers — he knew what she was going to do, of course — and for a moment they simply relaxed into the sense of fulfilment of their mirror-image desires as though it were a comfortable chair at the end of a long day.
The momentary slackening of tempo gave Shepard a chance to remember a misgiving he’d had after Liara had first described the joining to him: There’s things in here nobody should have to remember. To think it was to bring on an instantaneous and inexorable cascade of examples: realising that the mist settling on his face — and, dear God, getting into his mouth — was his big sister, aerosolised by a batarian artillery blast; rolling just out of the way as the thresher maw pounced on Akuze, then watching the obscene distension of its gullet as it swallowed a Marine who wasn’t so lucky… the view over the sights of his pistol as four shots struck Benezia squarely in the centre of mass.
“Mother! Don’t leave!” The stab of anguish Liara felt expressed itself as the memory of those words, and Shepard fought panic. I’ve hurt her. Already. The thing I wanted no-one and nothing to ever do.
Liara’s right hand slid up, incidentally making a mental note to do some serious exploring of the tactile sensations of human hair later, and pressed fiercely against the back of his head. No. Merely speaking the word could not have made it as emphatic. We will hide nothing from one another. She shared an image of herself desperately flinging bolts of biotic energy at her own mother, feeling the sick certainty that it had to be done, and that if it hadn’t been for Shepard, either Benezia or her commandos would probably have killed her. She shared her dismay at the memories from Mindoir and Akuze, her astonished awe at how he’d come through it all with his mind intact, and her resolution to bear the burden of those memories with him. You are not alone any more. You need never be alone again.
With the true perversity that makes a human’s private thoughts, even as he was marinating in a bath of love and gratitude, Shepard’s memory began to rehearse his most acute and private shames, as though testing the depth of Liara’s resolve: Think I can’t drive you away? Try this!
He had never seen a batarian on Mindoir, he remembered: while his parents had run toward the enemy, still working out how best to hold their borrowed rifles, he had flung his down and run for the deepest darkest hidey-hole he could find. I was only sixteen, the part of his mind that had no patience with self-pity pointed out contrapuntally, and he felt Liara’s mind amplify the counterpoint like a whispering gallery. He remembered lying awake night after night, the sickening conviction that he shouldn’t have come back from Akuze, that if he couldn’t save any of his squad, he should at least have contrived to die with them, lying like acid in the pit of his stomach. You should all have come back, the voice of his old gunnery chief, better for him than a dozen counsellors, responded. The galaxy shouldn’t need Marines; we should all die in bed, preferably while getting a leg over. But until the universe wakes up and notices that that’s true, the galaxy needs a few good men. So stand your post, Corporal!
In a last hectic attempt at self-sabotage, his scumbag subconscious dredged up a shame that was personal. Yes, I hoped you’d be able to get through to her, yes, I thought you had a right to confront Benezia and ask her what the hell, but that’s not why I took you on the Noveria mission. I was afraid that if I came back to the ship, looked you in the eye and said ‘I’m sorry, Liara. I had to kill your mother,’ then you’d always wonder. I was afraid it would mean not getting… this.
That shaft went home: Shepard felt a moment of Liara’s shock and pain, and wanted to scream at himself, but almost before the thought had achieved full bloom, he heard Liara’s voice in his mind, coolly answering. “The way I remember it, I asked to come with you. And besides, if I don’t want to have to wonder, all I have to do is… this.”
The truth of it hit him: he knew he would never refuse to open his mind to Liara in its entirety, and a vista opened before him of a relationship predicated on an honesty so complete it would take a human couple a lifetime — or more — to achieve. Every memory, every thought and fear and crazy impulse shared; not just knowing what the other person was likely to say or do, but knowing what it was like to be the other person as they said or did it. He felt small and humbled by the thought that Liara wanted to share so much with him. He let his arms loosen fractionally around her waist, and she in her turn stopped pressing their foreheads quite so hard together. In the circumstances, it seemed redundant.
Shepard stood in awe of the discipline he felt in Liara’s mind: she rehearsed a shame or two of her own for him, but she did it deliberately, not in the haphazard, half-unwilling way his own insecurities kept bubbling to the surface. They remembered cowering in a corner on Therum, not summoning up so much as a biotic kick as Shepard and his comrades took on a krogan battlemaster and a squad of geth. B-but, Shepard’s objection welled up at once, that’s what I’m for! Soldiers take on the enemy so that half-starved, sleep-deprived archæologists don’t have to! Shepard felt a wry smile cross his own lips and Liara’s at once, and realised that the indignation that had welled up instantly as he sampled Liara’s self-pity was precisely the mirror image of the way she’d reacted to his. You see? He gave a mental nod, and dove in for another kiss.
Their lip-lock this time was tender, their lips meeting and parting staccato as they leaped in each other’s arms off the edge and fell head-first into love. As Shepard varied the rhythm with a little nuzzling, he suddenly became conscious of the fact that the body he held in his arms was, if not precisely that of a woman, at least shaped remarkably like one. He began to feel a pleasant tension in the trousery regions, and suddenly another memory rose to the surface: Lizzie cornering him behind a feed shed and flinging him up against the wall for some serious smooching. She’d fished about eagerly in his britches, but determinedly as she might glom on to what she found, he’d been so nervous that no response was forthcoming. Lizzie had said some very unkind things in the midst of her frustration, but present experience was beating memory into a cocked hat: rather than re-enact the memory this time, Liara was still enjoying the feeling of Shepard’s hair on her fingertips, and the way he’d switched from tender smooching to desultory nuzzling by way of variety, and sharing her purring satisfaction with the whole experience left him relaxed enough that — Haaaaaa-lelujah! — there was definitely something going on in the lower wards. The two of them felt a sudden and imperative desire to know what the other looked like naked.
After a certain amount of undignified hopping and flailing over which it is best to draw a discreet veil, Liara and Shepard stood nude before one another for the first time — the first time either of them had reached this stage of, ahem, events with anyone. This was the human phase of the encounter: since it wasn’t involved in the conception process, evolution had given the asari no particular reason to enjoy having anything inserted into their birth canals. Nevertheless, this was where Shepard’s commander — for the time being — very sincerely wanted to go, so Liara listened to it and followed its lead.
To lie down and have this intensely beautiful creature crawl up his body from the foot of the bed, to have her climb aboard and make her body the servant of his pleasure — Shepard’s every carnal wish was Liara’s command; so much so that he felt guilty for not considering the lady’s needs like he’d been raised to, but was swiftly reminded that Liara was feeling everything he was feeling: her needs, in this moment, were his needs.
No virgin male can take very much of that kind of treatment, so it wasn’t long before a natural association of ideas led Liara to give him one last get-out clause. I will start the true joining soon. It’s… — she struggled to maintain focus as he got closer and closer — It’s not likely that I will get pregnant, but it’s possible. Are you…?
Their human climax was delayed for a moment by a rush of sentiment as Shepard couldn’t help picturing them both surrounded by little blue daughters — in pretty dresses — each one as lovely as their mother. She rolled her eyes and gripped him hard with her thighs to refocus him on present realities, then smiled as she felt his certainty that of all the uncertainties in the future, fatherhood was the one he would face with the gladdest heart. They forged on, and soon they were shuddering together through a galactic-scale, very male orgasm.
Liara relaxed and let herself collapse onto the bed beside Shepard, and smiled as she felt his arm wind itself around her waist yet again, and again without involving his conscious mind, which had pretty much checked out for the moment. She took a breath, paused in much the same way as an Olympic diver on the end of the board, and deepened the connection between their minds in a single plunge.
Shepard’s back arched and his eyes flew open briefly, but soon he adjusted his position so that both of them were lying in precisely the same attitude. All sense of identity floated temporarily into abeyance. They were thirty, they were one hundred and six; they knew the secrets of Prothean culture from digs and the literature, they knew it from the Cipher; they were a talented biotic, they could detail strip an Avenger assault rifle blindfold. They had never known their father, they had looked up to Nathan Shepard as not quite to anyone else. All these things were true, all contradictions and paradoxes were irrelevant, and so was time. They lay there, with no paradox in their profound and mutual bliss for a period that was at once eternity and all too short a season, then fell simultaneously into a dreamless and satisfied sleep.
“By the Goddess! That was incredible, Shepard.”
“You were incredible.”
“Five minutes ETA to the mu relay!”
“I had better go. Duty calls. You would not want to keep Joker waiting.”
Right, Shepard thought. Duty. Ilos. Saren. The Conduit. How the hell am I supposed to concentrate on any of that?