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Sleeping together – in the same bed that was – turned out to be a bit more complicated than Shepard had imagined. She had never shared a bed with anyone. Her trunk during the N7 training had been barely big enough for herself. She imagined it couldn’t have been much different for Liara, huddled into some kind of makeshift folding bed in the middle of a digging site.
The asari was cold to touch in the already cool captain’s quarters, the blankets messily wrapped around their naked bodies. They had been tossing around for the last few minutes, finding a comfortable position. Without asking, Shepard was pretty sure she wasn’t the only one finding it hard to adjust, if the slightly uncomfortable tightness in the back of her head meant anything. Their meld had stopped a while ago already, but she had discovered the effect lingered afterwards the closer they stayed.
“Should I get a new pillow?” She asked anyway, her voice barely above a whisper in the quiet of the darkness, except for the soft humming of her fish tank.
“What?” Liara whispered back, looking around in blind search of Shepard’s facial expression, her warm breath tickling the commander’s cheek.
“For your head,” she had noticed Liara only ever facing side wards on the cushions, awkwardly trying not to put too much pressure on her crest.
It was silent between the two, Liara’s fingertips tracing the edge of Shepard’s jaw with a ghostly touch. It made the little hairs at the back of her neck stand on end. She knew that Liara must know how this always made her heart skip a beat.
“It’s okay,” she said eventually. Shepard turned her head towards her completely and this close she could almost feel Liara’s smile, “I’ll get used to it.”
And Shepard felt herself grinning against her will, the feeling in the back of her head suddenly so warm and spreading through her whole body.
Yes, she thought and she knew Liara could hear her then – they’d get used to this.
With time it had become increasingly difficult differentiating between a hospital bed and an actual one. Shepard spent so much time in med bays, when she finally did lay down in her own quarters, she couldn’t shake off the feeling that she was still being monitored.
“Commander, I can sense that you heart rate is rising. Do you want me to call Dr. Chakwas?”
Shepard jerked upwards. “No! Don’t worry, EDI. Everything’s fine.”
Liara peaked her head out of the bathroom, eyebrow markings raised in suspicion and Shepard rolled her eyes at her.
“An elevated heart rate can be the caused by exercise or a stress response. Data suggests it happens regularly before you go to sleep.”
Shepard sighed, angling one of her legs up so she could rest her arm on it. Liara was already making her way towards the bed, freshly showered with the smell of asari style shampoo and minty tooth paste sticking to her.
“Don’t worry,” Shepard muttered, before any of them could add anything else to the conversation, “you don’t need to keep track of every single time it happens. It’s not that unusual in humans, it happens.”
“I will keep note of that.”
Shifting her gaze from the wall in front of her, a blue face was already scrutinizing her thoroughly.
“You got that scientist look on you. Are you planning on digging me up?”
This time Liara rolled her eyes silently, crawling towards her side of the bed and ignoring the way Shepard was eyeing her ass in the small pajama shorts.
“You know there’s no point in lying to EDI.” Her voice was quiet enough for EDI marking the conversation as private, seeing that she didn’t add anything else to it.
Shepard looked over her shoulder to where Liara had propped up her pillow and was leaning against the headboard of the bed. She rarely slept in the captain’s quarters these days, too entranced in her work, staring at the bazillion monitors she had assembled in Miranda’s old office. There was a sort of unspoken agreement between the two – that even when Liara slept she would do it in her own bed.
Shepard had become a horror to share a bed with, kicking and tossing in her sleep. Going as far to scream and panic manically, unless somebody woke her up. She didn’t talk about the nightmares, there was no point in it. Whatever snippets she couldn’t hide, Liara would see in the meld anyway.
“I’m not lying,” she turned away from her girlfriend again, looking at the fish tank across the room. It was empty. She hadn’t had the time to buy any new ones yet.
“About what part? There-”
“There is nothing to worry about!” She made the point of hitting down on the mattress at the sides of where she had her legs stretched out. It had barely made a sound, but the effect had pushed through, with Liara choosing not to protest.
Laying next to each other in the dark, Shepard listened to Liara’s breathing until it evened out. She remembered hearing people say ‘Don’t go to bed angry’. She didn’t even know if Liara was angry, she hadn’t said anything anymore, only turning around once the lights went off, letting Shepard face her back. It didn’t matter anyway, they were both so tired all the time, nobody could keep a grudge without passing out at some point.
Shepard put a hand on her chest, feeling her heart beat faster in nervousness. She didn’t want to wake the asari with any muffled crying or accidentally striking a hit against her. Forcing her eyes to stay open, she hoped Liara would wake up to check on her Shadow Broker business, before she fell asleep.
Liara gently pushed her down into the bed, Shepard gladly following her instructions. Locking their lips together, she smiled into the kiss, her hands freely roaming the naked body straddling her. Liara’s hands were buried in her hair, which was already sweaty and sticking to Shepard’s forehead. She felt her body grow hotter with every passing second Liara kept pressing persistently against her.
After Shepard took hold off her blue thighs and flipped them over, Liara let her head fall back into the pillows. She grabbed a hand full of the blanket underneath her and let a relieved moan escape her once Shepard finally gave her what she wanted.
Afterwards, they laid breathless on top of each other, limbs sprawled across the wide expense of their bed. Shepard spared the digital clock on her bedside table a glance and blinked a couple of times at the realization that they had been having sex for almost four hours straight. Liara’s amusement rippled through her body, as response to the thought.
Shepard closed her eyes against Liara’s warm fingertips caressing the bumps of the thick scar tissue on her back. How bizarre that there was no schedule for them to follow anymore. It didn’t matter that they kept awake the whole night, for there was no reason for them not to sleep in. The blinds closed so the morning light wouldn’t wake them up, the shadows in their stylish bedroom covering them entirely. There was no humming of any fish tank or occasional rattling of the Normandy’s ever working engine. Nobody would knock unexpectedly at their door and disturb their short lived peace.
Shepard felt a knot form in her chest, her throat closing up. Her fingers itched with something to do and she settled on hugging Liara even closer.
Shepard snapped her eyes open and let them fall shut again after realizing that it was one of these days again. It was bitter cold in their bedroom – Shepard had never quite gotten used to the possible temperature alternatives in apartments after living on space ships for so long. She could hear the rain hitting against the large window to the side, she knew it was technically not real, but it still never failed to remind her of Earth. She cleared her throat.
“Hey, Glyph, why do my legs always hurt when it’s raining?”
The drone’s voice rang out over the inbuilt intercom in their apartment.
“Before it rains, barometric pressure tends to decrease. When this happens, there's less air pressure exerting itself on your body, which may allow muscles and other tissue surrounding the joints to expand. The expansion may crowd the joints, putting extra pressure on them, which may lead to pain.”
Shepard chuckled slightly at the overdetailed explanation. “Ah, sure.”
“In your case it might also just be another side effect from your cybernetic implants.”
“Yes, thanks for reminding me.”
“You’re welcome, Commander Shepard.”
Shepard sighed, flexing her toes under the blanket and immediately tensing up at the sharp pain that shot up her legs. She blinked away the tears in her eyes and very carefully, moved her head to the side to look at the clock on her bedside table. Despite it being quite dark outside, it was early in the morning. The space next to her on the bed was empty and she had no idea where her wife was.
Slowly moving her arms, she held onto the bedside table, trying to hoist herself up without using her legs. Her body, however, worked against her and she slipped on the fancy Thessian bedsheets Liara had insisted they got. Her hips abruptly met the floor and Shepard gnashed her teeth at the sudden sensation. With time she had come to the realization that no matter how new and innovative the implants were that Miranda created for her, her body would just get harder to adapt to. Just the other month she had spent several nights in the hospital, fighting off another infection.
“Liara!” She cried out, trembling with the aftershock of the fall. Her legs laid outstretched in front of her, tied in a strange knot.
“Liara!?” Her voice broke, as her entire body went numb from the pain and heat rose to her head in anger.
Soon after she heard the hectic tapping of naked feet on the hallway, Liara tore open the door and hesitated for second, before rushing to Shepard’s side.
“What happened?!”
“Clearly, I’m trying to get out of bed!”
Liara’s shoulder’s slumped down, her face releasing its worried grimace.
“Why didn’t you just call me to come help you?”
Her voice was relatively calm – this had happened before and it would certainly happen again.
Shepard stayed quiet, pressing her lips together and refusing to look her in the eye. Liara’s hand’s were warm when she gripped her arms and helped her up. Her movements were well rehearsed, carefully making sure that Shepard’s feet wouldn’t touch the floor and sat her on the bed again.
“You’re pregnant and yet you’re the one helping me.” Shepard grumbled.
Liara let out a small laugh, sitting down next to her wife and letting her fingers stroke her hair.
Shepard hadn’t been asleep anyway, but once she heard the cough, she jerked alerted, her heart dropping to her stomach. The blinds were only halfway closed and the streetlights from outside shone weakly onto the bed. Her arm was around Liara, who was still very much asleep, her quiet snores not even faltering by one bit.
Shepard slowly lifted her head to look over the asari towards the right side of the bed, where – the shadows parting and enclosing a small form. Forcing herself not to blink, she watched the baby intensely, waiting for any signs of discomfort. A few seconds later she saw it move, wriggling in the small dent of the mattrass it lay in.
She hadn’t been quite on board with the baby sleeping in bed with them, but Liara had only rolled her eyes.
“You worry too much,” she had said, “it’s completely normal for asari.”
She was pretty sure she had never slept any less than she was right now, the very thought of something happening to her daughter was the most consuming fear she had had since the Reaper’s attacked Earth.
The baby coughed again, quietly and turned her head around as if looking for something in the dark. With her blood pressure on an unhealthy high, Shepard stretched out the arm she had wrapped around Liara’s waist, to reach over to her daughter. A tiny blue hand wrapped around her calloused finger and squeezed.
The water was cold on her face, a welcomed wakeup call from the nightmare that had plastered her. She still felt the ringing of an explosion in her ears, smelled the char and smoke from burned corpses as if she was right there on the field again. Shepard shook her head and gave herself a small slap, staring tiredly into the mirror over the sink. The familiar outline of scars stared back at her, the dark blueish circles under her eyes. The newly prescribed sleeping meds worked well, but their side effects only ruined the rest of the day for her.
Taking a step back, she breathed out a sigh and glanced down at the rest of her. She had gotten soft, literally. Shepard remembered, at the height of the war, looking in the mirror the same way she was right now and seeing a woman twice her size. She remembered being thrown a few miles in a fight and barely feeling the hit, rock-solid muscle and thick skin absorbing most of the damage directed at her.
Nowadays, it was harder to keep the food down. The meds provoked her stomach terribly and Dr. Chakwas plagued her with a strict diet to get the weight back as soon as she was losing it.
She was still tall and big, to a certain degree – it eased her anxiety that she was still able to deliver as her title of Spectre. It was just different; it would never be as it once was. She would never be how she once was.
The rustling of clothes brought her back to reality and she glanced to the bedroom to see its door slightly ajar, a small blue hand gripping its handle. She tiptoed around the bed, to not wake Liara and the baby and stepped onto the hallway. Her oldest daughter quickly backing up and stopping with her back to her own room. Shepard did her best to kneel down to her level.
“I didn’t wake you up, did I?”
Tami shook her head, her small hands fumbling with the hem of her pajama shirt.
Shepard furrowed her brows in confusion and whispered: “Why are you wake, hm?”
“I had a nightmare,” Tami mumbled, looking down at her naked feet.
Her father only smiled understandingly, bringing her hands to her daughter’s side, giving her a comforting squeeze.
“Don’t worry, I get them too.”
“Why don’t I get to sleep in the bed with you anymore?”
Shepard glanced back into the master bedroom, the newest addition to their family curled against Liara’s sleeping form. “You jealous?”
Tami squinched up her face in outrage. “No!”
And Shepard couldn’t suppress a low chuckle as she laid a hand on the young asari’s crest and pulled her into a hug.
The smell of antiseptic was so piercing, it made Shepard’s eyes water and there was a second she wished her nose had thrown the towel the same way her ears had. She let her eyes fall shut, the noise around her barely registered anymore. The squeaking of shoes on the floors, the rustling of plastic going out so faintly like a small light.
The strength left her arms, falling to her sides and hanging off the sick-bed. There was a fussing over her, medical gloves touching her everywhere, pinching, inserting needles. Shepard only flinched slightly, all fight having left her body.
She had gotten shot enough times to know when the moment came her stomach clenched uncontrollably and the blood rushed up her throat. It was almost a comforting memory, the coppery taste of battle on her tongue, a persisting pressure on her chest. As the feeling left her body, she saw lights flash behind her eyelids – the reapers caving in, falling down the endless nothingness of the galaxy like dead birds.