Her fingers were raw.
Liara barely felt them anymore—the sting had faded hours ago, buried beneath the scrape of metal against her palms, the grind of dust into the cuts she'd stopped counting. She'd lost her gloves somewhere in the first hour of searching. Maybe the third. The timeline had blurred into a single endless moment of lifting, pushing, crawling through the wreckage of what had once been the Citadel's central promenade.
Her knees ached through her torn enviro-suit. The fabric had split along the left thigh hours ago, exposing blue skin smeared gray with ash and coolant. She didn't remember when it happened. Didn't care.
Around her, the structure groaned—a dying sound, metal settling into its final shape. The air tasted like ozone and burnt circuitry, and every breath carried a chemical warmth that clung to the back of her throat. Above, through the shattered remnants of the presidium's artificial skyline, she could see actual stars now. Real ones. The Citadel's sky-dome had cracked open like an egg, and the vacuum of space yawned beyond, held back by emergency barriers that hummed with a failing whine.
She didn't have much time.
None of them did.
The search parties had stopped three days ago. Officially, the operation had shifted from rescue to recovery. The brass on the surviving Alliance ships had said it with such careful, clinical language—"transition to remains identification"—as if the words could soften what they meant. As if Liara hadn't heard the grief beneath them.
She'd kept searching anyway.
Garrus had tried to stop her. Tali had begged her to rest. Even Joker, brittle and hollow-voiced, had told her to come back to the Normandy. "She wouldn't want you to kill yourself in that wreck," he'd said, and Liara had almost laughed. Almost. Because the cruelest part was that he was right—Shepard wouldn't have wanted this. Shepard had always put everyone else first, had thrown herself into the abyss so the galaxy could live, had made peace with dying so Liara wouldn't have to.
But Shepard wasn't here.
And Liara couldn't stop.
She lifted another slab of twisted metal—a section of railing that had once overlooked the garden courts, now a jagged mess of bent struts and shattered glass. Her arms screamed. Her shoulders burned. She threw it aside and heard it clatter somewhere in the darkness, the sound swallowed by the vast emptiness of the ruined station.
The dust settled.
And Liara saw an arm.
Her breath stopped. Not the shallow, ragged breathing she'd been running on for hours—it actually stopped, frozen in her chest like a physical thing, like the universe had reached in and held her heart still.
The arm was pale. Human. Slim but muscled, the forearm streaked with dried blood and grime. An N7 gauntlet encased the hand, the carbon-fiber plating cracked and smoking, one of the light strips dead and dark. The fingers were partially curled, relaxed in a way that suggested unconsciousness rather than—rather than the alternative.
Liara's hands started shaking.
She crawled forward, her knees scraping against broken tile, her vision tunneling until the arm was all she could see. All that existed. The dust. The blood. The familiar shape of those fingers, the ones that had traced her jawline in the quiet hours before the battle, the ones that had held her face and promised to come back.
She'd promised.
"Shepard."
The name came out as a whisper. A prayer. Liara didn't recognize her own voice—it was cracked, raw, barely audible over the groaning of the wreckage and the hum of failing barriers. She reached out, her fingers trembling so violently she could barely control them, and touched the gauntlet.
It was warm. Still warm.
A sob caught in her throat. She pressed her fingers against the inside of Shepard's wrist, feeling for the gap between the gauntlet's armor plates, for the vulnerable skin beneath. Her hands were shaking too hard. She couldn't find it. She couldn't—
"Come on," she hissed, her voice breaking. "Come on, come on, come on—"
She found it. A narrow gap where the gauntlet had cracked and separated from the vambrace, exposing a strip of pale skin smeared with soot. Liara pressed her fingers against it, pressing down the way she'd seen medics do, searching for the rhythm of blood pushed by a beating heart.
Nothing.
The wreckage groaned around her. The stars watched through the shattered dome. Somewhere in the distance, a support beam gave way, the crash echoing through the hollow station like a death knell.
Liara pressed harder, her fingers digging into Shepard's wrist, refusing to accept the silence beneath her touch.
And then—
There.
A beat. Faint. Irregular. So weak it could have been her own pulse hammering in her fingertips, wishful thinking given the illusion of life.
She held her breath. Counted the seconds.
Another beat.
Liara's vision blurred. Tears—when had she started crying?—ran hot down her cheeks, cutting tracks through the grime on her face. She laughed, a broken, disbelieving sound that turned into a sob, and she pressed her forehead against Shepard's arm, feeling the warmth of living skin against her own.
"You're alive," she whispered. "You're alive, you're alive, you're—"
Her omni-tool flickered to life on her wrist, responding to the spike in her heart rate. The blue glow cast harsh shadows across Shepard's prone body, illuminating the blood matting her auburn hair, the cracks in her armor, the terrible stillness of her chest.
Still alive.
Liara's hands moved before her mind caught up, instinct taking over. She keyed the comm channel—the private one, the one that bypassed Alliance command and went straight to the Normandy—and her voice came out as a command, sharp and clear despite the tears streaming down her face.
"Garrus. I found her."
A beat of static. Then: "What?"
His voice was raw. Disbelieving. She heard the crack in it, the edge of hope he'd been suppressing for weeks.
"I found her," Liara repeated, and her hands were already moving, already digging at the debris piled around Shepard's body, shoving aside chunks of metal and stone with a strength she shouldn't have had. Adrenaline. Desperation. Love. "She's alive. Faint pulse, weak but present. I need—I need help clearing the debris. There's a beam across her chest, I can't move it alone—"
"I'm on my way."
The comm went dead. Liara didn't stop to think about what she'd just done—the hope she'd just kindled, the possibility of crushing it if Shepard slipped away before they could get her out. She couldn't afford to think. She could only move.
She dragged another piece of debris aside, then another, her breath coming in sharp, ragged gasps. The beam across Shepard's chest was a support strut, twisted and bent, pinning her to the ground. Liara's fingers found the edge of it, tested the weight, and knew immediately she couldn't lift it alone.
But she could try.
She braced her feet against the unstable floor, bent her knees, and pulled. The strut shifted—an inch, maybe two—and her muscles screamed in protest. Her vision went white with the strain. She held it, panting, refusing to let go even as her arms began to shake uncontrollably.
"Hold on," she whispered, whether to herself or to Shepard, she didn't know. "Just hold on. I've got you."
She let the beam drop, gasping. It hadn't been enough. Shepard was still pinned, still trapped beneath the weight of a station that had tried to kill her and failed. Liara slumped against the debris, her chest heaving, and pressed her hand against Shepard's cheek, smearing blood and dust across blue skin.
"Don't you dare leave me," she said, her voice breaking. "Don't you dare. Not after everything. Not after I finally found you."
Shepard didn't respond. Her face was slack, peaceful in a way that terrified Liara more than any wound could have. The scar running along her jaw was pale against her skin, a reminder of the first time she'd cheated death. The faint rise and fall of her chest was barely visible beneath the weight of the beam.
But it was there.
Still rising. Still falling. Still fighting.
Liara laughed again, the sound catching on a sob, and she pressed her forehead against Shepard's, feeling the warmth of her breath—weak, shallow, but there—against her lips.
"I love you," she said. "I love you so much. And I'm not going to let you go. Do you hear me? I'm not letting go."
Footsteps. Heavy, running, the clatter of talons on broken stone. Liara looked up to see Garrus rounding a collapsed pillar, his sniper rifle slung across his back, his face a mask of barely controlled emotion. His silver-blue hide was streaked with dust and what looked like old blood, his visor cracked and glowing with a faint amber light.
He stopped when he saw them. When he saw Shepard.
His mandibles went tight. His eyes—those amber eyes that had seen too much death—went wide, and for a long moment, he didn't move. Didn't speak. Just stood there, staring at the woman who had been his commander, his friend, his sister-in-arms.
"Is she—" His voice cracked. He cleared his throat and tried again. "Is she really—"
"Alive." Liara's voice was steadier now, anchored by the need to act. "Weak pulse. Shallow breathing. There's a beam across her chest—I couldn't move it alone."
Garrus was already moving, his long strides eating up the distance between them. He dropped to his knees beside the beam, his gauntleted hands finding purchase, and Liara saw the same strain she'd felt mirrored in his frame.
"On three," he said.
She nodded, positioning herself beside him, her hands finding the same grip. "One."
"Two."
"Three."
They pulled together. The beam rose—slowly, agonizingly, the metal groaning in protest—and Liara felt every muscle in her body scream. Her vision tunneled. Her teeth ground together. She wouldn't let go. She couldn't. Shepard was beneath this weight, and she would move the entire station if she had to.
The beam shifted. Tilted. With a final, screeching protest, it slid off Shepard's chest and crashed to the ground beside them, sending up a cloud of dust and debris.
Liara collapsed forward, her hands finding Shepard's face, checking her airway, her pulse, the rise and fall of her chest. Still there. Still fighting.
"We need to get her out of here," Garrus said, already scanning the wreckage around them. "The emergency barriers won't hold much longer. If we lose atmosphere—"
"I know." Liara's hands were already working, finding the seals on Shepard's armor, checking for additional injuries she couldn't see. "Help me get her clear. Carefully. I don't know what's broken."
Garrus moved to Shepard's feet, lifting her legs with a gentleness that belied his size. Liara slid her arms beneath Shepard's shoulders, cradling her head against her chest, and together they lifted her free of the debris that had held her captive.
Shepard was light. Too light. The armor was heavier than she was, and Liara could feel the fragility of the body beneath it—the wasted muscle, the sunken hollows of a woman who had given everything she had and then some.
But she was breathing.
And as Liara carried her through the wreckage of the Citadel, past the bodies of the fallen and the shattered dreams of a galaxy trying to rebuild, she felt Shepard's hand twitch against her chest. A small movement. Unconscious. Involuntary.
But it was there.
Liara pressed her lips to Shepard's hair, tasting blood and ash and the faint, familiar scent of her—the one that had survived even the destruction of a station, even the weight of a war, even the threshold of death itself.
"I've got you," she whispered. "I've got you. And I'm not letting go."
The emergency barriers hummed their failing song. The stars watched through the shattered dome. And somewhere in the distance, a ship was waiting—the Normandy, its engines warm, its crew holding their breath—ready to carry them home.