The monitor's beep had become the med bay's heartbeat, steady and relentless. Liara had stopped measuring time by it hours ago—or maybe days. The rhythm had soaked into her bones, a metronome counting seconds she'd lost track of. Her lips were dry against Shepard's knuckles, and the scent of antiseptic and stale recycled air clung to everything.
She didn't know when she'd stopped being a scientist and become just a woman holding on. The line had blurred somewhere between the wreckage and this chair, between the first faint pulse and the steady beep that now filled the silence. Her eyes burned. Her stomach had long since stopped complaining about the emptiness.
The med bay door hissed open.
Liara didn't turn. Couldn't. Her hand was fused to Shepard's, and prying it loose felt like breaking something fragile.
Garrus's footsteps were heavy, deliberate—the gait of a soldier who'd learned to make his presence known rather than startle. He stopped a few feet away. She heard the clink of something being set down on the counter.
"You need to eat," he said.
"I'm not hungry."
"That's not a choice, Liara."
She heard him move closer, felt the heat of his body as he stood beside her. His shadow fell across the biobed, the cracked visor catching the sterile light. He didn't touch her. He just stood there, a solid presence in a room that had felt hollow for too long.
"How is she?" he asked.
Liara finally looked up. Garrus's amber eyes were fixed on Shepard's face, his mandibles tight. He looked how she felt—worn thin, held together by will and stubbornness.
"The same," Liara said. Her voice came out rough, unused. "Dr. Chakwas says her vitals are stable. The chest tube is draining properly. She's..." She trailed off, searching for a word that wasn't a lie. "Waiting."
Garrus made a sound low in his throat. "That's the worst part, isn't it?"
"Yes."
He pulled up a chair—not the one beside her, but one that sat back, closer to the door. A guard's position. His rifle rested across his knees, and he settled into it like a man who'd learned to sleep with his eyes open.
"I'll sit with you," he said.
Liara nodded, a small, grateful motion. She turned back to Shepard's face. The pale skin. The scar that ran from her temple to her jaw, a reminder of the first time she'd cheated death. The auburn hair, still matted at the edges despite their careful cleaning.
"She looks peaceful," Garrus said. "I've never seen her look peaceful."
"Neither have I." Liara's thumb traced a slow circle on Shepard's knuckles. "Even asleep, she used to fight. Her jaw would clench. Her hands would curl into fists. She was always ready for the next battle."
"She's still fighting."
"I know."
The silence that followed was heavy, but not uncomfortable. Garrus was a presence she trusted, and his company was a balm she hadn't realized she needed. The minutes stretched. The monitor beeped. The ship hummed around them, alive and moving.
And then—
Change.
A pressure shift in her palm. Not the weight of Shepard's hand lying passive. Something else. Something active.
Liara's breath stopped.
Shepard's fingers curled. A twitch at first, barely there, a ghost of movement against her palm. Then a deliberate, agonizing effort—like a swimmer breaking the surface for air after too long underwater.
The monitor stuttered. A skipped beat. A flutter.
Liara's heart stopped, started, raced.
"Jane?"
Her voice was a foreign object, sharp and scared. She leaned forward, her free hand hovering over Shepard's cheek, not quite touching. Waiting. Hanging in the space between one heartbeat and the next.
Shepard's brow furrowed. A flicker of something crossing her face—pain, or awareness, or the effort of reaching. Her head turned, a millimeter toward Liara's voice. Her lips parted, forming a silent shape that might have been a word.
Liara pressed her palm to Shepard's cheek. The skin was warm. Alive. "I'm here," she said. "I'm right here. Come back to me."
The green eyes didn't open. But they moved beneath the lids—rapid, searching, as if tracking something only she could see. Her jaw worked, a muscle jumping beneath the scarred skin.
Then the fight receded. The brow smoothed. The lips closed. The fingers in Liara's hand relaxed—then curled again, weaker this time, but holding on.
The monitor steadied. The beep returned to its rhythm, steady and alive.
Liara didn't pull her hand away. She stayed there, her palm pressed to Shepard's cheek, her own breath ragged and raw. "I'm here," she whispered again. "I'm not going anywhere."
The door hissed open. Dr. Chakwas entered, her footsteps brisk and efficient. She crossed to the monitors, her eyes scanning the readouts, her fingers tapping the console.
"Her brain activity increased," she said, her voice carefully neutral. "A spike in the motor cortex. What happened?"
"She moved," Liara said. "Her fingers. Her brow. She tried to turn her head."
Chakwas's shoulders relaxed, just slightly. "That's a good sign. A very good sign. Her body is fighting its way back."
"When will she wake up?"
The doctor hesitated. Liara caught it—the pause that held a thousand unspoken qualifications. "It's still too early to say. The brain activity is a positive indicator, but she has significant trauma. We need to let her body heal at its own pace. Days. Weeks. Possibly longer."
Liara nodded. She'd expected the answer, but it still landed like a weight in her chest.
Chakwas's expression softened. "But this is progress, Liara. Real progress. A few days ago, we weren't sure she'd survive the night. Now she's fighting to reach you."
"I know."
Chakwas left after adjusting the monitors, her footsteps fading down the corridor. The door hissed shut. The silence returned, but it felt different now. Fuller. Charged.
Garrus rose from his chair and moved to stand beside her. He looked down at Shepard's face, his mandibles working. "She's coming back."
"I know."
He placed a hand on Liara's shoulder, a brief, grounding pressure. "I'll let the others know. Tali's been haunting the comm station, and Joker's been making jokes that are getting darker by the hour. They need to hear something good."
Liara nodded, not looking away from Shepard's face. "Tell them she's fighting."
"That's all they need to hear."
He left, his footsteps receding. The door hissed shut.
Liara was alone again with the beep and the breath and the hand in hers.
She reached into her pocket with her free hand. Her fingers found the small, worn box, warm from her body heat. She pulled it out and held it in her palm, not opening it. Just feeling its weight, its presence, the promise it carried.
She'd been carrying it for months. Through the final push. Through the beam run. Through the wreckage and the waiting and the long, aching nights. It had become a talisman, a thing she touched when the fear got too loud.
She opened it now.
The band caught the sterile light, a thin circle of silver and platinum, simple and elegant. She'd chosen it because it reminded her of Jane's eyes—a steady, quiet gray-silver that held the whole galaxy in their depths.
She didn't put it on Shepard's finger. Not yet. That moment belonged to Jane, awake and alive, when she could say yes or no or ask her to wait. But she held it up, letting the light catch it, making a vow she didn't speak aloud.
"You fought your way back to me," she whispered. "The least you can do is open your eyes and see me waiting."
She closed the box and wrapped her fingers around it, a tangible weight against her palm. Then she settled back into her chair, one hand wrapped around Shepard's, the other holding the ring box.
The monitor beeped. Steady. Alive.
The Normandy shuddered as it hit the mass relay. The stars outside the viewport stretched, then blurred into lines of light as they accelerated through the corridor. The ship hummed around them, carrying them forward, away from the wreckage and toward something that felt, for the first time, like a future.
Liara pressed her lips to Shepard's knuckles and closed her eyes.
The waiting continued. But the shape of it had changed.
The ring box was warm in her palm, a small pressure she'd grown used to over the months. She didn't put it away. Instead, she let it rest in her lap, her thumb tracing the edge of the lid, feeling the worn velvet where she'd touched it a thousand times before.
Shepard's fingers were still curled around hers. The grip had loosened after the initial spasm of effort, but it hadn't let go completely. A residual tension remained, as if even in unconsciousness, Shepard was holding on to something.
Liara shifted in her chair, her joints protesting the hours of stillness. She stretched her neck, feeling the crack of vertebrae, and rolled her shoulders. The med bay's lights had dimmed to a soft amber glow, the ship's night cycle settling in around them. The monitors glowed blue and green, their readouts steady and unchanged.
She looked at Shepard's face. The scarred skin. The pale lips. The dark circles beneath her eyes that even unconsciousness couldn't hide. She'd memorized every line, every mark, every story written on that face. The thin scar above her left eyebrow from a bar fight on Omega. The cluster of small scars along her jaw from the debris of the first Collector attack. The deeper line that ran from her temple to her cheekbone, a souvenir from the Battle of the Citadel, when she'd died the first time.
Liara reached out and touched that scar, her fingertips tracing its path with a reverence that bordered on worship. "You've been through so much," she whispered. "Too much. And you keep getting back up."
Shepard's brow tightened, just slightly. A flicker of response, as if she could hear the words through the fog of unconsciousness.
"I'm not asking you to get up yet," Liara continued, her voice soft and steady. "I'm asking you to rest. To heal. To let the fight go, just for a little while. I'll keep watch."
The monitor beeped. Steady. Alive.
Liara pulled the ring box from her lap and opened it again. The silver band caught the dim light, throwing a small, bright reflection onto the ceiling. She studied it, the simple elegance of the design, the way it seemed to hold light rather than reflect it.
"I almost gave this to you on the Citadel," she said. "Before the beam run. I had it in my pocket, and I kept thinking, 'After. After we win. That's when I'll ask.'" She laughed, a hollow sound. "I was so sure we'd have time."
She closed the box and pressed it to her chest, feeling its weight against her sternum. "We still have time. I have to believe that."
She set the box on the small table beside the biobed, within reach but not in her hand. She needed both hands for what came next.
She leaned forward and pressed her forehead to Shepard's. Skin to skin. Breath mingling. The faint scent of antiseptic and clean sheets and something underneath that was just Jane—the smell of warm skin and old leather and gunpowder, faint but unmistakable.
"I'm going to tell you a story," Liara said. "A different one. Not about the war. Not about the fights. About the first time I knew I loved you."
She closed her eyes, letting the memory surface. "We were on the Normandy, after the mission on Therum. You found me in the cargo bay, sitting on a crate, staring at nothing. I'd just lost my mother. I'd just found out who she really was. I was drowning."
She paused, feeling Shepard's breath against her lips. "You didn't say anything. You just sat down beside me and waited. For an hour. Maybe two. You didn't ask me to talk. You didn't tell me it would be okay. You just sat there, a solid presence in the dark, letting me know I wasn't alone."
Liara's voice cracked. "That's when I knew. Not because of anything you said. Because of what you didn't say. Because you understood that sometimes, the only thing you can give someone is your company. Your presence. The knowledge that they're not facing the dark by themselves."
She drew back, just enough to look at Shepard's face. The green eyes were still closed, but there was a softness in the features now, a relaxation that hadn't been there before. The furrow in her brow had eased. The tension in her jaw had loosened.
"You taught me that," Liara said. "How to be present. How to hold space for someone. I spent a hundred years learning to be a scientist, learning to read the galaxy in data and patterns. You taught me how to read the spaces between people."
She took Shepard's hand again, lacing their fingers together. "So I'm going to sit here. I'm going to hold this space. And I'm going to wait for you to come back to me."
The monitor beeped. Steady. Alive.
Liara looked at the ring box on the table, then back at Shepard's face. "When you wake up, I'm going to ask you a question. And I'm going to hope you say yes."
She leaned back in her chair, still holding Shepard's hand, and let her eyes drift closed. The hum of the ship surrounded her, the steady rhythm of the engines a lullaby she'd learned to trust. She didn't sleep. Not quite. But she let herself rest in the space between wakefulness and dreaming, her hand wrapped around the woman she loved, her heart beating in time with the monitor's steady pulse.
Minutes passed. Or hours. The distinction had blurred into irrelevance.
A sound broke the silence.
Not the monitor. Not the ship's hum. Something else. Something soft and fragile and impossibly dear.
A whisper. A word. A breath of sound that barely reached her ears.
"...Liara..."
Her eyes snapped open. Her hand tightened around Shepard's.
"Jane?"
The green eyes were still closed. But the lips had moved. She was sure of it. A faint tremor, a shaping of air into sound, a name that had fought its way through the darkness to reach her.
"I'm here," Liara said, her voice breaking. "I'm right here. I heard you. I heard you."
She pressed her lips to Shepard's knuckles, tasting salt and the faint metallic tang of the sterile wipes they'd used to clean her hands. "Keep fighting. Keep coming back. I'm here. I'll always be here."
The monitor beeped. Steady. Alive.
And somewhere, in the darkness behind closed eyes, a spark flickered and held.