Garrus's rifle cracked twice—sharp, precise, the sound cutting through the groan of failing metal like a promise kept. Liara flinched, her arms tightening around Shepard's body as the echo rolled through the wreckage. Ahead, a tangle of rebar and shattered deck plating slumped inward, smoke curling from the impact points.
"Path's clear," Garrus said, his voice gravel over the comm's open channel. "Thirty meters. Maybe less."
Thirty meters. Liara's legs had stopped listening to her three corridors ago. Every step was a negotiation with muscles that wanted to collapse, with lungs that burned from the ash-thick air. But Shepard was warm against her chest—too warm, fever-warm, her skin slick where the armor had cracked and the insulation failed. Her pulse flickered under Liara's thumb like a candle in a dying wind.
"Liara." Garrus's hand closed on her shoulder—firm, grounding. The turian was beside her, his visor cracked, his amber eyes fixed on hers through the smoke. "We're almost there. Let me take her."
"No." The word came out sharper than she meant, a blade honed on three weeks of grief. She softened, the edge bleeding into something raw. "I need to carry her. I need to—" Her voice broke. "I need to feel her breathing."
Garrus's mandibles tightened. He didn't argue. Instead, he stepped closer, positioning himself at her flank, his rifle sweeping the corridor ahead. "Then let me clear the way. Don't stop. Don't look back."
Liara nodded, the motion sending a tremor through her neck. She adjusted her grip—one arm under Shepard's knees, the other cradling her shoulders, the way she'd carried wounded civilians on Therum, on Illium, on a dozen battlefields she'd promised herself she'd never see again. But this was different. This was everything.
They moved. Garrus's boots crunched over debris, his rifle a constant, sweeping presence. Liara's own steps were shakier—each foot lifted and placed with deliberate care, her mind cataloging every obstacle: the exposed conduit that sparked blue-white, the slab of concrete that tilted like a grave marker, the shattered window that opened onto the black void of space, the stars cold and indifferent.
Shepard's head lolled against her shoulder. A low sound escaped her throat—not a word, not a moan, just the ghost of breath pushed past damaged vocal cords. Liara's heart seized, then raced. "Jane. Jane, I'm here. I'm here, we're almost there."
No response. The pulse under her thumb skipped again—a beat that arrived too late, then another that didn't arrive at all. Liara counted. One. Two. Three. Four. There—a flutter, weak but present. She breathed again.
The corridor opened into a wider chamber—what had once been an observation deck, its dome shattered, the stars pouring in like a flood of cold light. And there, through the gaping hole in the station's skin, she saw it.
Running lights. Blue and white, cutting through the smoke and darkness like a beacon. The Normandy —its silhouette familiar, its engines warm, its ramp lowered and waiting on a stretch of intact deck plating that must have been cleared in the last few hours.
Liara's legs buckled.
It wasn't a fall—more a folding, her knees giving way as the sight hit her like a physical blow. She caught herself, one hand bracing against a twisted support beam, the other still locked around Shepard. Her breath came in ragged gasps, and for a moment she forgot how to move, how to speak, how to do anything but stare at the ship that meant home.
"Liara!" Garrus was there, his arm steadying her, his voice urgent. "Stay with me. We're almost there."
She nodded, but her throat was closed, her eyes burning. The Normandy. She'd left that ship thinking she'd never board it again. Thinking she'd spend the rest of her life—centuries, perhaps—haunted by its empty corridors, by the quarters she and Jane had shared, by the ring still tucked in her pocket because she'd never gotten the chance to give it.
Her comm crackled. A voice—Tali's, breaking, barely held together. "Liara? Liara, I'm reading movement near the observation deck. The barriers are failing, you need to—" A pause. A sharp inhale. "Is that—is that her?"
Liara's finger found the comm button. "We have her." Her voice was a stranger's—hoarse, alien, raw. "We have her, Tali. She's alive. She's—" She stopped. Because what came next was a question she couldn't answer. She's fighting? She's stable? She's dying? All of them true. None of them useful.
"How bad?" Tali's voice was quieter now, stripped of pretense.
"She's breathing. Pulse is weak. Irregular." Liara forced herself to her feet, Garrus's hand under her elbow, the movement sending a spike of pain through her lower back. "She has a cracked N7 gauntlet, burns across her chest, and I can't tell how much damage the beam did. We need a med bay. We need Dr. Chakwas. We need—"
"She's prepping the med bay now," Tali cut in. "Joker's bringing the ramp close as he can, but the station debris is—" A clatter, the sound of something dropped. "Just get here. Please."
Liara didn't answer. She didn't have words left. Instead, she tightened her grip on Shepard and ran.
The deck was treacherous—slippery with hydraulic fluid, littered with shards of glass that crunched under her boots. Garrus moved with her, his rifle coughing twice more, clearing a path she couldn't see through the tears that blurred her vision. The Normandy was close now—twenty meters, then fifteen, the running lights so bright they hurt, the ramp a dark tongue extended across the wreckage.
Shepard's pulse fluttered again. Skipped. Returned. Skipped again—longer this time, the silence stretching until Liara's own heart forgot to beat.
"Come on," she whispered, the words torn from somewhere deep, somewhere that had forgotten how to hope. "Come on, Jane. Don't do this. Not when we're so close."
She felt it—a twitch in Shepard's hand, the fingers curling against her collar. Not conscious. Reflex. But it was something. It was her.
Ten meters. The ramp was close enough now that Liara could see the dents in its surface, the scorch marks from the last landing. She could see Tali's silhouette at the top, the purple glow of her suit, the way her hands were pressed against the airlock frame like she was holding herself upright.
And then the world tilted.
Not the deck—though the deck did shudder, a deep groan rolling through the station's bones. Emergency barriers, failing in earnest now, the pressure differential sucking at the air, pulling debris toward the broken dome. Liara staggered, her weight shifting, and for a horrible moment she felt Shepard slip—the dead weight of her body pulling free of Liara's exhausted grip.
She caught her. Barely. Her fingers dug into the cracked armor, into the fabric beneath, and she held. The station groaned again, and somewhere behind them, metal screamed as a support beam gave way.
"Go!" Garrus was behind her, his hand on her back, pushing. "Don't stop, Liara— go!"
She went. Five meters. The ramp. Her boots hit the metal with a sound that was almost musical—a thud of arrival, of homecoming. Tali was there, her gloved hands reaching, and between the three of them they lifted Shepard onto the ramp, onto the deck, into the garish light of the cargo bay.
"Get her to the med bay," Liara gasped. "Now."
But Tali was already moving, her voice sharp over the ship's comm—demanding, commanding, calling for Dr. Chakwas, for a stretcher, for everything the Normandy had. Garrus lifted Shepard in his arms, his turian strength making the task look easy, though his mandibles were tight, his eyes fixed on the woman he'd followed into hell and back.
Liara followed. Her legs were gone now—not metaphorically, they simply refused to function, the adrenaline bleeding out of her in a rush that left her dizzy, trembling, light-headed. She grabbed the railing along the cargo bay wall and pulled herself forward, one hand after another, unable to let Shepard out of her sight.
The med bay doors slid open. Dr. Chakwas was there, her white coat pristine, her face a mask of professional calm that cracked the moment she saw what they were carrying. "Oh, my god. Shepard."
"Her pulse is weak and irregular," Liara heard herself saying, the words automatic, rehearsed from a dozen reports. "She was pinned under a structural beam for—I don't know how long. Her N7 gauntlet is cracked, there's smoke damage, and her breathing is shallow. I think she has internal injuries, but I couldn't—" Her voice cracked. "I couldn't check. I just had to get her here."
Chakwas was already at work, her omni-tool glowing as she ran a diagnostic, her hands moving with practiced efficiency. "You did the right thing. Get her on the bed—Garrus, carefully—yes, there. Good."
Liara reached the bed just as Garrus lowered Shepard onto it. She grabbed Shepard's hand—her ungloved hand, the one with the faint calluses from years of gripping weapons, the one that had held hers so many nights. The pulse was there. Still there. Thready, uncertain, but present.
"I'm here," Liara said, the words thick in her throat. "I'm not leaving. I'm not going anywhere."
Chakwas glanced at her, a flicker of something—recognition, permission—before turning back to her work. "Then hold her hand. Talk to her. She might not be able to answer, but she'll know your voice."
Liara nodded. The med bay hummed around her—the soft beep of monitors, the hiss of oxygen, the distant thrum of the engines as Joker lifted the Normandy away from the dying station. She leaned forward, pressing her forehead to Shepard's, feeling the faint warmth of her skin, the shallow whisper of her breath.
"You made it," she whispered. "You made it, Jane. We're on the Normandy. We're going home. And I'm going to be here when you wake up. I'm going to be here, and I'm going to tell you that I love you, and I'm going to show you the ring I've been carrying for months, and I'm—"
She stopped. Because Shepard's hand had tightened around hers. Barely. A ghost of pressure, a whisper of intent.
Liara's breath caught. "Jane?"
No response. The monitors continued their steady cadence—alive, still alive, barely alive. But the hand in hers didn't let go.
And that was enough. For now, that was everything.
Minutes passed. Or hours. The med bay's lighting was the same either way—clinical white, unforgiving, casting sharp shadows across Shepard's face. Liara watched the monitors with the focus of a scientist who'd forgotten how to blink. Heart rate: 42. Blood pressure: 78 over 50. Oxygen saturation: 89 percent. Each number a prayer, each fluctuation a crisis.
Dr. Chakwas moved around the bed with quiet precision—injecting stimulants, adjusting the IV drip, running a handheld scanner across Shepard's torso. The scanner beeped, and the doctor's jaw tightened.
"Three cracked ribs," Chakwas said, her voice low, professional. "One of them may have nicked her left lung. There's fluid building. I need to insert a chest tube."
Liara's grip on Shepard's hand tightened. "Will she—"
"She'll survive the procedure." Chakwas met her eyes, and for a moment the mask slipped. "The question is whether she'll survive what comes after. Her body has been through hell, Liara. The beam crushed her chest. She's been without proper medical care for—" She glanced at her omni-tool. "At least six hours. Possibly longer."
"She's survived worse." Liara heard the defiance in her own voice, thin and brittle. "She's died before. She came back."
"She had better medical support that time." Chakwas turned away, preparing the chest tube kit. "And she wasn't carrying the weight of the entire Reaper war on her shoulders."
Liara fell silent. The monitor beeped. Shepard's chest rose and fell—shallow, each breath a negotiation. Liara watched the scars on her face, the way they traced across her jaw and down her neck, disappearing beneath the collar of her cracked armor. She knew every line of them. She'd traced them in the dark, in the quiet hours when Shepard let herself be soft, let herself be held.
"I need you to step back," Chakwas said. "Just for a few minutes."
Liara shook her head. "No."
"Liara—"
"I said no." Her voice was sharper than she intended, a blade honed on three weeks of grief and the last hour of terror. She softened, forcing herself to breathe. "I'll stay out of your way. But I'm not leaving her."
Chakwas studied her for a long moment. Then she nodded, a small concession, and turned back to her work. "Fine. But if you faint, I'm having Garrus carry you out."
"Noted."
The procedure took twelve minutes. Liara counted every one. She watched Chakwas's hands—steady, sure—as she made the incision, inserted the tube, attached the drainage system. She watched the fluid fill the collection chamber, pale and tinged with blood. She watched Shepard's face for any sign of pain, any flicker of awareness, and found none.
When it was done, Chakwas stepped back, wiping her hands on a cloth. "The tube will stay in for at least 48 hours. I'll monitor for infection. Her ribs will need time to heal—and she'll need to stay immobile while they do."
"How long?"
"Weeks. Maybe months." Chakwas's voice was gentle now, the clinical edge worn away. "Shepard is not going to wake up tomorrow, Liara. She may not wake up this week. Her body needs to repair itself, and that takes time. Rest. Patience."
Patience. Liara had spent three weeks learning patience—the long, agonizing patience of searching through wreckage, of hoping against hope, of refusing to accept what everyone else had already accepted. She had no patience left. Only fear, and love, and the desperate need to feel Shepard's pulse under her fingers.
"I'll wait," she said. "As long as it takes."
Chakwas placed a hand on her shoulder—a rare gesture, human and warm. "I know you will. But you need to take care of yourself too. When was the last time you ate? Slept?"
Liara opened her mouth to answer, then closed it. She couldn't remember. The days had blurred together—searching, digging, hoping. She'd lived on ration bars and caffeine, on the adrenaline of each new lead that turned into another dead end.
"That's what I thought." Chakwas sighed. "I'll have Tali bring you something. Soup, maybe. Easy on the stomach."
"I don't—"
"You don't have a choice." Chakwas's voice was firm, but not unkind. "Shepard needs you strong. You can't be strong if you're collapsing from exhaustion."
Liara looked down at Shepard's hand, still wrapped in her own. The fingers were cold now—the med bay's temperature control, probably—but the grip, faint as it was, hadn't loosened. "Okay," she said. "Okay."
Chakwas nodded and turned to input data into her terminal. The med bay settled into a rhythm—the soft beep of monitors, the hiss of the ventilator, the distant hum of the Normandy's engines as they carried them away from the wreckage, toward somewhere safe, somewhere that might feel like home again.
Liara pressed her lips to Shepard's knuckles. "I'm here," she whispered. "I'm not going anywhere. And when you wake up—" Her voice broke, reformed, carried on. "When you wake up, I'm going to kiss you until you can't breathe. And then I'm going to marry you."
The monitor beeped. Steady. Alive. The hand in hers held on.
And that was enough.