Chapter Text
Liara held up her glass, watching the vivid purple liquid swirl within it, catching the fractured neon of the club lights. She wasn’t entirely sure why she had come here. A nightclub like this was highly visible. Exposed. She was an information broker, a powerful one, and yet here she was in a dark dress, alone, drinking at the bar in plain sight.
She had imagined her reunion with Shepard for months. Ever since the first whisper reached her — that the Commander was alive. Working with Cerberus. Breathing.
It had been Liara’s doing, after all. She had handed over Shepard’s broken, frozen body to them. She had stood there and made the decision, clinging to a fragile, desperate hope that they could restore the woman she loved.
Goddess.
She had loved her. She did.
In her weaker moments, she had pictured their reunion differently.
Shepard stepping into her office alone. No armor. No Cerberus insignia. Just green eyes and that familiar, crooked half-smile. A quiet room. Teasing in her voice — So this is where you’ve been hiding? — and Liara crossing the distance between them instead of widening it.
She had imagined forgiveness. She had imagined relief.
She had imagined falling into her arms and feeling that steady human heartbeat against her cheek, proof that she had not failed.
But everything had changed. In the two years since the destruction of the Normandy SR-1, something inside her had calcified. Two years ago she had been grieving, soft, uncertain. Nights of quiet sobbing had hardened into something colder. Sharper. She had learned to wield information like a blade. She had grown confident. Decisive. Dangerous.
At a cost.
Shepard, on the other hand, had always been kind. Firm when necessary. Unyielding when it mattered. But at her core, she was a peacebringer. A paragon. A diplomat, even when she insisted she wasn’t.
Liara had loved that about her.
And so, of course, Shepard had walked in just as Liara was threatening to flay a man alive with her mind.
Her mother’s words.
I am not my mother, she had once told Shepard.
And yet she had pushed her away with the same cold finality.
Well. After the kiss. Goddess, the kiss.
She hadn’t meant to kiss her. She hadn’t planned it. But seeing her face again after all that time — the freckles scattered across her nose, the familiar set of her mouth. Her hair, longer now, curling slightly at the ends.
It had sent Liara reeling.
The taste of her. The warmth of her mouth.
Alive.
And then Liara had sent her away on a pointless errand, as though she were nothing more than an operative to be deployed.
What was wrong with her?
She took a long swallow of her drink, letting it burn down her throat and coil warmly in her stomach.
The look in Shepard’s eyes. Those beautiful green eyes she adored. The hurt had been there — fleeting, controlled — but Liara knew her too well to miss it.
After their joining before Ilos, after every night they had spent together on the SR-1 after that, Shepard had become easier to read. Their bond had stripped away subtlety.
Liara had seen the heartbreak plainly. Watched Shepard bury it beneath her commander’s mask.
She had also seen the glance exchanged between Shepard and Garrus as they left her office. Quiet. Knowing.
At least Shepard had him.
He had been at her side through the fight against Saren. A steady presence.
She could lean on him.
Not too much, Liara thought bitterly.
Goddess. Now she was jealous as well.
After pushing her away.
“Hey.”
The voice cut cleanly through her thoughts.
A human woman stood before her, smiling. Young, perhaps. Liara was poor at estimating human age.
She had red hair just like Shepard’s. The similarity… it was subtle, almost cruel.
Liara had been fascinated by Shepard's hair. She loved the texture, the way it caught light.
The woman in front of her now had her hair in a braid. Shepard had once shown Liara how to braid her hair. She remembered Shepard laughing softly when Liara fumbled the motion, remembered the patient way she had let Liara brush it again and again.
The woman’s smile faltered slightly under Liara’s quiet scrutiny.
Her eyes were brown.
Not green.
“Sorry,” the woman said over the music. “I don’t mean to intrude. I just… wanted to say you’re beautiful.”
“I am aware,” Liara replied.
The human blinked, then grinned. “Confidence. I like it. I’m Kaz.”
There was an Earth accent there. Regional. Familiar in a way Liara did not care to examine too closely.
Liara took another measured sip of her drink.
“Do you have a name?” Kaz asked, sliding onto the stool beside her, close, but careful not to crowd.
“I have several,” Liara said mildly.
Kaz laughed, flustered but undeterred. She rubbed the back of her neck.
Goddess. Shepard did that too.
“Look, I don’t usually do this,” Kaz admitted. “Approach strangers in bars. Sorry. I’ll leave you alone.”
She moved to stand. Liara caught her wrist lightly. She wasn’t entirely sure what prompted it.
“You may stay.”
Kaz’s smile returned slowly, cautiously. “That’s good. I was about to spend the night wondering what would’ve happened if I hadn’t.”
Liara tilted her head slightly. “You assume something will happen?”
Kaz’s eyes flicked down to Liara’s mouth — subtle, but not subtle enough.
“I’m hoping,” she said.
Liara let the silence stretch between them. She could feel the alcohol humming faintly through her bloodstream, softening the sharpest edges of her anger. Not dulling it. Just blurring it enough to make this… possible.
“Humans,” Liara said finally, studying her. “You are all so transparent.”
“Oh?” Kaz leaned in slightly, huffing a laugh. “Then what am I thinking?”
Liara’s gaze dropped deliberately, then returned to her eyes.
“That I appear lonely. That you could distract me from whatever has me staring into my drink.”
Kaz swallowed.
“Am I wrong?”
Liara considered the word.
Lonely.
Goddess.
“Yes,” she said evenly. “You are.”
Kaz smiled faintly. “Then I’m thinking you don’t get told no very often.”
That almost earned a real smile.
“And you intend to attempt it?”
“Maybe I just want to see if you’re as intimidating up close.”
Liara leaned in, close enough to feel the woman’s heat. Human skin ran warmer than asari. Liara used to comment on it at night, wrapped in Shepard’s arms.
You feel like starlight, she had whispered once.
Shepard had smiled at her with such open, earnest affection that it had nearly undone her.
Liara’s jaw tightened at the memory.
“I am intimidating,” Liara said softly.
Kaz did not pull away.
“Good,” she replied. “Because I’m not scared.”
Liara studied her face again.
The hair. The tilt of her mouth. The set of her shoulders.
Not exact.
But close enough.
“You remind me of someone,” Liara said before she could stop herself.
Kaz’s smile softened. “An ex?”
Liara’s fingers tightened slightly around her glass.
“I suppose.”
Kaz exhaled slightly. “Bad breakup?”
The understatement almost made Liara laugh.
“She died,” Liara said coolly.
Kaz’s expression shifted immediately. “Oh. I’m— I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”
“She is no longer dead,” Liara corrected sharply. “That is the complication.”
Kaz hesitated. “That sounds… difficult.”
Liara met her eyes then. Brown.
Not those eyes that saw too much and forgave too easily.
“It is irrelevant,” Liara said. “You wished to distract me.”
Kaz hesitated, just briefly, and then reached out, fingers brushing lightly against Liara’s forearm. Testing.
Liara didn’t pull away. She should have.
Instead, the question slipped out before she could contain it.
“Are you Alliance?”
Kaz blinked, surprised by the question. “No.”
For a fraction of a second, something inside Liara twisted.
Disappointment. It startled her.
Because if Kaz had said yes, if she had been military, disciplined, structured, it would have been easier to pretend.
Relief followed just as swiftly, colder and more honest. If she were Alliance, this would feel too wrong.
“I’m former C-Sec,” Kaz added. “Took a contract here on Illium last year.”
Liara nodded once, filing the information away automatically.
As though it did not matter.
“You’re shaking,” Kaz murmured.
Liara hadn’t realized she was.
“It is cold in here,” she lied.
Kaz’s thumb moved slightly, slow, deliberate. “You don’t seem cold.”
Liara inhaled slowly through her nose.
This was foolish. Petty. Cruel.
Shepard had looked at her earlier that day as though nothing had changed. Like she wanted to pick up exactly where they left off, as though two years of death and grief and darkness had not carved something sharper into Liara’s bones.
Do you still love me?
The question had been written plainly in the human’s eyes.
And Liara had pushed her away.
She stood abruptly.
Kaz blinked. “Did I—?”
“Come,” Liara said.
There was no warmth in it. It sounded like an order.
Kaz followed anyway.
* * *
Liara’s apartment overlooked Nos Astra’s endless glow — towers of light piercing the artificial dusk, skyways threading light between them like veins. The city never truly darkened. It only shimmered.
The apartment was immaculate. Ordered. Controlled.
Every surface polished. Every datapad aligned precisely. No stray garments. No half-finished coffee. No softness. Nothing like the SR-1.
Kaz gave a low whistle as she stepped inside. “Your work must pay well.”
“It does,” Liara replied evenly, already crossing to the bar.
She poured two drinks without asking what Kaz preferred and extended one towards the woman.
“What is it you do?” Kaz asked, accepting the glass.
Liara glanced at her. “That is private.”
Kaz straightened slightly. “Right. Sorry.”
She wandered a little, her free hand slipping into her pocket as she surveyed the space. “You live alone?”
“Yes.”
“By choice?”
Liara sipped from her own glass. “Yes.”
Kaz studied her. “You don’t seem like the casual type.”
“I am not.”
“Then what am I?”
Liara’s gaze sharpened. Clinical. Assessing.
“A distraction.”
Kaz stilled slightly at that, then gave a crooked smile. “Honest at least.”
Liara stepped closer.
There was no music here. No crowd noise. Just the hum of distant air traffic outside the panoramic window.
Kaz set her drink down first.
Liara closed the remaining distance between them and kissed her.
It was decisive. Skilled. Controlled.
Wrong.
Kaz kissed differently. She was slightly taller than Shepard. Not by much, but enough that Liara had to tilt her chin differently. Kaz's hands were firmer, more impatient. Human warmth and pressure and weight, less measured. She explored with open hunger rather than quiet awe.
Shepard had always been steady. Even when she took control, there had been patience in it. A kind of reverence.
Kaz’s fingers slid across Liara’s crest, gripping slightly. She clearly had some experience with asari.
Shepard used to brush her fingers there slowly, fascinated by the texture, the sensitivity. As if she were learning a language.
Liara inhaled sharply.
“Too much?” Kaz murmured against her mouth.
“No,” Liara replied quickly.
She didn’t slow down.
Instead, she took Kaz’s hand and led her upstairs with purposeful efficiency, like executing a plan. She asked very few questions, only what was necessary. Preferences. Boundaries. Tone detached, almost academic.
Kaz laughed softly at one point. “You always this… thorough?”
“Yes.”
“You sound like a doctor.”
“I am.”
The bedroom lights dimmed automatically as they entered. Soft blue washed over polished floors and pale sheets.
For a fleeting second, the room shifted. Not this room, another.
The commander’s cabin. Clothes discarded carelessly on the floor. Red hair spilled across white sheets. One arm flung over green eyes as Shepard slept, breathing slow and deep.
Her throat tightened.
Kaz pulled her into a kiss again.
Liara let herself sink into it.
“I don’t want to be too forward,” Kaz said, breath uneven now. “But are we going to join, or just—”
“No.”
The word cut cleanly through the room.
Kaz blinked.
Liara’s expression had shifted — something fierce and possessive flashing through the cold composure.
“That is not something I share lightly.”
Not something she shared with anyone.
Not something she had shared with anyone but—
She severed the thought before it could finish forming.
Kaz nodded slowly. “Okay.”
She didn’t argue. That almost made it worse.
Liara focused on mechanics. On sensation. On the way human skin felt beneath her palms.
She reached for the fastening of Kaz’s jacket. Efficient. One piece at a time. She didn’t rush, but she didn’t linger sentimentally either. Each layer removed with quiet intention.
Kaz seemed almost delighted by that. She let Liara undress her, eyes tracking every movement. There was hunger there, uncomplicated, human desire.
When Kaz’s shirt fell away, Liara’s eyes tracked automatically.
She was beautiful. Smooth skin. A tattoo along her sternum. Full curves.
But she wasn’t—
Her shoulders were narrower than Shepard’s. Her frame softer. Her posture lacked that ingrained military steadiness Shepard carried even off-duty.
Shepard had scars. Faint lines from N7 training. From Elysium. Eden Prime. From battles she rarely spoke about. Liara used to trace them absentmindedly while Shepard slept. Sometimes Shepard made quiet sounds in her dreams when Liara’s fingers followed those paths.
Kaz’s skin was unmarked. Unfamiliar.
Kaz felt like warmth and nightlife. Shepard had felt like gravity.
Kaz noticed the appraisal.
“Like what you see?” she asked lightly.
Liara’s expression didn’t change. “You are aesthetically pleasing.”
Kaz laughed. “That’s the least sexy compliment I’ve ever received.”
Liara said nothing. She stepped forward then, crowding Kaz slightly, backing her toward the bed.
Kaz swallowed.
Her fingers brushed the side of Liara’s neck, tentative at first, then bolder when Liara didn’t pull away. She kissed her again, slower now.
Liara let her.
For a moment.
Kaz’s hands slid down Liara’s waist, appreciative, confident. She exhaled softly against Liara’s mouth.
“Fuck,” Kaz murmured, voice low with awe. “You’re—”
“Careful,” Liara replied coolly.
Kaz smirked slightly. “What? Can’t I admire?”
Liara didn’t answer.
When Kaz reached for Liara’s dress, her hands were slower. She slid the fabric down carefully, fingertips grazing asari skin as it was revealed inch by inch.
Kaz’s breath caught audibly.
“Wow,” she whispered, almost to herself.
Liara was accustomed to that reaction.
Asari beauty was weaponized, mythologized. And Liara, even with her cool detachment, carried herself with a confidence that made it sharper.
Kaz’s hands trailed over her hips, her waist, her shoulders. Exploratory, appreciative.
Shepard used to pause too. Used to look at her like she was something rare.
But Shepard’s gaze had always carried something else.
Affection. Wonder. Love.
Kaz’s gaze was desire.
It felt thinner.
Kaz stepped closer and, perhaps emboldened, shifted her weight, subtly guiding Liara backward toward the mattress.
The move was instinctive. Extremely human. A bid for control.
And for one disorienting heartbeat, Liara let herself imagine stronger hands. Imagined that grounded, commanding presence. Imagined being pressed down into cool sheets by someone who knew her pulse, her breath, her reactions before she voiced them.
A flicker of something sharp and desperate flared in her chest. It was gone just as quickly. This was not that.
Liara’s hand caught Kaz’s wrist mid-motion.
“No,” she said.
It wasn’t loud. It didn’t need to be.
Kaz blinked. “Sorry. I just thought—”
“I will lead,” Liara said.
There was steel there now. Not flirtation. A boundary.
Kaz searched her face for a moment, then nodded. “Okay.”
Liara released her and guided her down onto the bed instead.
She positioned her deliberately. Liara controlled the rhythm, the pace, the depth of every touch. Because this, at least, she could dictate. She could not control the galaxy. She could not control death. She could not control the way Shepard had looked at her — hopeful and wounded all at once.
But she could control this room.
Kaz responded eagerly, hands roaming, occasionally attempting to reclaim some dominance. Every time she did, Liara redirected her. Reclaimed the space.
Shepard would have fought her for it. Would have smirked and said, Oh? Is that how it’s going to be, Dr. T’Soni?
And Liara would have folded immediately. She always had.
Kaz yielded easily. Too easily. And as the intimacy deepened, Liara found herself searching desperately for something familiar in the sensation.
Kaz’s hands slid up Liara’s back, fingers splaying across her shoulders. Shepard’s grip had always been grounded. Protective even in passion.
Kaz clutched.
Shepard anchored.
Kaz moved beneath Liara differently. Reacted differently. Sounded different.
Wrong pitch. Wrong rhythm.
Liara closed her eyes.
Green, her mind supplied uselessly.
Not brown.
She pressed closer anyway.
At one point, Kaz’s hands framed her face, thumbs brushing along her jaw in a gesture so achingly similar that Liara’s breath caught.
“Shep–”
The name tore halfway out before she strangled it.
Kaz froze.
“What?”
Liara swallowed.
“Nothing.”
Her pulse was racing now, not from desire. From grief.
She doubled down then. Intensified her focus. Methodical. Controlled. She ensured Kaz was breathless, overwhelmed — something she could measure. Quantify. Something she could finish.
Because finishing meant it would be over.
Kaz trembled beneath her, breath hitching, fingers digging into Liara’s shoulders. Liara could feel the human tighten around her fingers and then release with a loud cry. Kaz grabbed onto her as Liara fingered her through it.
The asari felt—
Nothing.
Just a hollow echo.
When it was done, Kaz lay there flushed and satisfied, reaching instinctively to pull Liara down beside her.
Liara allowed it for exactly three seconds.
The warmth of another body against hers felt invasive.
She eased away, sitting upright once more.
The city lights flickered across her bare skin.
Kaz propped herself up on one elbow, watching her. The earlier confidence had faded into something more cautious.
“Do I get a turn to touch you now?” she asked quietly, a hint of self consciousness bleeding through the teasing tone.
“No,” Liara said, not turning to face her.
Silence landed, heavy.
“You weren’t even here, were you?” Kaz murmured quietly, breaking the silence after a time.
Liara didn’t turn around.
“I was,” she replied.
“No,” Kaz replied gently. “You weren’t. I don’t even know your name.”
Liara didn't give it. Silence stretched.
After a time, Kaz slid out of bed and began dressing.
“I don’t mind being a distraction,” she said. “But I don’t want to be a replacement.”
Liara’s fingers curled slightly into the sheets.
“You were not,” she said.
Kaz gave her a look that suggested she did not believe her.
At the door to Liara’s bedroom, she hesitated. “For what it’s worth… whoever she is? She’s lucky.”
The door closed softly behind her. Liara heard her go down the stairs and out the front door.
Liara remained sitting long after the apartment fell quiet.
The taste on her lips wasn’t right. The warmth in her bed felt intrusive. Every brush of skin, every sigh, every fleeting touch. It wasn’t Shepard. It wasn’t hers.
She rose slowly and crossed to the window, wrapping her arms around herself. The city shimmered beneath her, but even in the glow, it felt hollow.
On the glass, faintly reflected back at her, she almost expected to see green eyes over her shoulder, steady and alive, filled with the weight of all they’d survived together. But there were no eyes. No voice. No warmth that fit like gravity. Only her own reflection.
A tremor ran through her, subtle and involuntary. The ghost of a touch, the lingering pull of Shepard’s presence she had once known so intimately. Not memory, exactly, but something deeper: their melding. Faint, a trace burned into her being. She could almost feel the echo of Shepard’s pulse against hers, steady, alive, grounding.
Her chest tightened, a sharp, desperate longing she could not name or soothe. She closed her eyes and let herself remember the way Shepard had made her feel: safe, wanted, known in a galaxy that had never cared.
The memory was beautiful, and cruel. And it burned.
She sank to the floor, pressed against the glass, fingers trembling against the cold metal. The city pulsed outside. She could almost imagine Shepard there, alive, moving through it all, everything still spinning forward without pause, without her.
She let the grief roll through her in a low, quiet moan, the weight of absence pressing her toward the floor, toward herself. And beneath it all, beneath the ache and the longing, the ghost of Shepard’s presence lingered still, silent and intimate, a tether she could not sever.
Alone. Still in love.