A/N: A rare-pairing prompt fill. Not sure how well I captured Feron. Feedback welcomed as always!

=====I=====

"You love him," he says once Shepard is finally gone.

She doesn't immediately reply, staring instead at the flickering monitors. He takes her silence itself for the answer he'd expected, and turns to leave. He's almost at the door when her voice stops him:

"I think I did, once," she says, head bowed, still facing away. She's softly-spoken at the best of times, he remembers, but these words are little more than a whisper. "But not anymore. We're different people now. He's angrier. I'm... colder."

Her shoulders shake ever so slightly, and he realizes that she's trying not to cry. The Shadow Broker's not supposed to cry. The tears come anyway when she's drawn into his equally shaky embrace. He'd been left in the chair for three days straight this time, before she came and saved him; he's weak and unsteady.

"He'll never forgive me." Her voice is hoarse against his shoulder. "Not for bringing him back. He was my friend. My best friend. He thinks I betrayed him."

"Then he's an idiot."

He thinks the words, but doesn't say them aloud, not when her arms wrap themselves around his waist. It's the first time in two years that another's touch hasn't brought forth pain of one sort or another.

A few seconds later, she pulls away, wiping at her eyes, and the two of them get back to work without another spoken word.

=====II=====

She is colder. Harder. Stronger. She takes to the role as if she were born for it, taming a wild torrent of information that would certainly have drowned him if he'd tried. Even with her talent, though, it's not easy work. The days are so long that they might as well be called weeks and be done with it. There have been a few close calls too, Liara not striking quite the right tone or not having the right information immediately at hand. But they're learning quickly - she'slearning quickly. When she's not directing agents, she's reading old reports, scanning vid footage.

Her ruthlessness scares him, at times, he who has only seen this side of her in flashes before. During the brief time they'd fought together, it had been there, yes, but tempered by compassion, righteous purpose and a strange kind of dogged innocence. The innocence is long gone now, the once pure purpose dreadful and her compassion something she works hard to bury. She's not always successful at the last, but it's no consolation: she scares him most of all when she's vulnerable, and that is all her compassion makes her here. The Shadow Broker should shed no tears.

She's scaring him now.

"Can I trust you?" she asks. She's tired, eyes red and glassy from staring at terminals all day for weeks on end. Her skin is paler than it should be; she's losing weight.

He has to admit that it's a fair question, one he probably should have expected long before now. Even if he had come through for her in the end with Shepard's body, his loyalties had been a fluid thing all along the way. There was nothing personal about it, not until the end. It was just the way the game is played.

He's always loved the game. All the wheeling and dealing and intrigue and scheming, living on nothing but his own quick wits... There's no finer feeling in the world than seeing a scam come away clean, no truer joy than swindling the swindler. He loves being his own man. Loves his reputation as someone who can get things done. Loves, above all else, knowing secrets he's not meant to. Loves-

His witty retort dies on his lips. He'd loved the game, once. No more. Something else has come to occupy his heart. Someone else. But it's not something, someone that he deserves.

"Yes," he says softly. "With your life."

He's not sure which one of them is more surprised to realize it's true.

======III======

There is pleasure in service, if the cause is worthy. His parents had told him that, more than once. At the time, he'd thought them stupid at best. How could you possibly be content to hang around serving some bloated hanar until the humidity killed you off, not when there was a whole, great big galaxy out there, begging to be explored? He'd left home as soon as he was able, taking on a string of bad jobs, one after the other, until he'd found something he was good at. In time, he'd carved a niche out for himself in the information trade. He'd realised quickly that he'd never be one of the big boys - he's never been able to take the game seriously enough - but he could make a more than comfortable living while having a lot of fun.

He understands what they meant now, his parents. Serving Liara, helping her in any capacity brings him a sense of completion that makes him wonder if there had been some truth to the idea of the Whole the priests and priestesses had gone on about back on Kahje. Body and soul, working together in service of the task intended for them by the gods.

Even if that's not the case, it's undeniable that he is healing, if slowly. The spasms are fewer now, the flashbacks less frequent. He can go for days without either, spending his time on repairs, provisioning and other necessary drudgery. He makes her tea, hot and sickly sweet the way she likes it, rouses her when she falls asleep at her desk and provides advice when she asks for it. He jokes until she laughs, teases until she swats him away. Once, he manages to change the damned VI's user interface setting to elcor, and she chases him all around the Broker's room, making all sorts of outlandish threats as to what she'll do to him if he can't stop it from preceding every sentence it says with the declaration: 'annoyingly cheerful'.

She needs to laugh more, to smile, even if she is preparing them all for war. It's something he can give back to her.

======IV======

Pain pain blinding pain. Electricity surges through his body. His heart races. Lungs pant. Back arches against itself. Nostrils flare and breathe in smoke and ozone. His own flesh burning. Nerves on fire. A scream tears itself from his raw throat-

"Feron!"

His cheek stings sharply and he blinks, hand flying up to rub at it. Liara's standing before him, her own hand upraised to strike again. Her other rests, braced upon his shoulder.

"I'm sorry," she says quickly, letting the raised one drop to her side. "I didn't have anything closer at hand to bring you out of it. So to speak."

Her smile at the poor joke is nervous and fleeting as she searches his face. Up this close to her he can see all of the tiny imperfections of her pebbled skin. There's a series of faded scars along her forehead, a slight asymmetry to the thin markings along her brow, one odd freckle found halfway down her cheek. When he meets her gaze, there's a question there as she watches his confusion change to returned scrutiny. Her lips part slightly, her tongue darting out to wet them, head tilting a minute fraction to one side.

With the adrenaline of the memory surging throughout his body, it's too much to resist. He does the unthinkable, leaning forward to capture her mouth with his own, feeling as much as hearing her startled gasp before she hesitantly responds to his advances. Her lips are softer than they have any right to be. She tastes of sweet tea and salt, the ocean-

-the sun beating down, pleasantly warm upon his bare stomach and upturned face. Cool water beneath him, supporting his floating body. Salt spray on the air. The screams and calls of other children at play. Father watching from the boat, amused and oddly wistful-

Her other hand brushes at his neck, lands lightly on his shoulder, and then she's pulling away, pushing them apart.

"Feron, no. This..." She takes a step back and a deep, calming breath, hugging herself protectively. "This isn't right."

"Why not?"

"You're still recovering," she says with more certainty than she clearly feels. Liara can only be considered a good liar when you can't see her body language, don't know her myriad of tells, large and small. He knows them all, each and every one.

"What's that got to do with anything?" He takes a small step forward. She retreats.

"I... It would be taking advantage of you."

His heart races faster, a warm feeling rising in his chest. She wants him too. She's just said as much.

"I don't think you're the one taking advantage here," he says. Another step. Another retreat.

"That's not what I meant." She's stammering now, stumbling over her words. "You've been through unimaginable traumas. I'm a familiar face. Shepard and I rescued you. It's only natural-"

He cuts her off, reaching out a hand to touch her arm.

"I fell in love with you before they took me," he says simply.

A look of pure panic flashes across her face at his admission. Her retreat this time is complete, and he curses himself for an idiot or worse as he watches her go. He doesn't deserve someone like her. Scoundrel that he is, he never has. He hadn't even deserved her as a friend.

======V======

He's out of practice. Been unforgivably sloppy. Mouthed off to the wrong people. Taken unnecessary risks. And this is the predictable result: beaten bloody and bound head and foot in the warehouse of some third-rate merc band on some backwater moon, waiting for a ransom payout that will probably never come.

A treacherous part of him wonders if this isn't all Liara's work, her punishment for his presumption. Why else would she send him back into the field so abruptly if not to find a way to remove him from the picture? He'd tried to turn their friendship into something more and had broken it instead. Now he's simply an inconvenience, one that knows too much. If the Shadow Broker sheds no tears, she also has no friends, takes no lovers.

There's an explosion behind him, unbearably loud. Heavy crates cascade down from storage racks above, nearly crushing him. His guard jerks suddenly and falls backwards, a crimson dot sprouting from the centre of his head. More gunfire erupts nearby, another explosion, and then he knows only darkness.

Liara is waiting for him at the airlock when he returns, limping, to Hagalaz. She reaches out to touch his face, fingers gently caressing the livid bruising. Her hand is shaking.

"I'll always come for you." she whispers. "Always."

======VI======

She's soft and warm in his arms, her breathing light and even, a faint smile across her sleeping countenance. He watches her silently in the light of the ever-present monitors, feeling the desperate, aching tightness build in his chest.

She scares him most of all when she's vulnerable, because he knows that there's nothing in the universe that he wouldn't do to protect her, even if what she most needs saving from is herself.