She never should have asked for the paperwork. That’s her problem—or, that’s one of them, anyway: can’t let go. The whole goddamn city’s nothing but rubble and flames. There’s even pictures. Crappy, lo-res pictures caught with an omni-tool while some civilian-turned-journalist ran for their fucking life through the smoke billowing out of collapsed mine tunnels and the burnt out skeletons of buildings that used to be Fort Hill. Fucking military. Should’ve known better. Fucking reapers finally hit earth and they hole everyone up with all those weapons and defenses like a big red target. May as well have put up neon signs. ‘Here we are. Come and get us.’
Those stupid Fort Hill assholes used to leave out supplies for her and her friends. They’d sneak in to steal and she was thirteen years old before she realized it wasn’t an accident that they’d left out buckets of food and bottled water right next to the shit her crew came to lift.
That’s what they get, she thinks, squeezing her hands into fists. That’s what the fuck they get for being so stupid and—
“Val. Val, you’re hurting my fingers.”
“Shit. Sorry.” She drops Liara’s hand and stretches her fingers. Her eyes hurt, the way they do when she wakes up from a long night of grinding her teeth and curling into herself ‘til her joints are sore. Fucking pictures, fucking paperwork, fucking reapers.
Liara reaches toward her and pushes back some of her hair, presses a kiss onto her temple. “I shouldn’t have given it to you. Maybe I should have told you I couldn’t find anything.”
“I’d never have believed that,” Val says, almost smiling.
Liara puts her feet on the couch, brings her knees to her chest and leans into Val until she gets the hint and wraps an arm around Liara’s shoulders, letting the datapad and all its awful content fall into the space between the cushions.
“It’s ok for you to be upset,” Liara says quietly, staring off into the empty room and pulling Val’s hand into hers.
“Nothing to be upset about. Wasn’t anybody there I cared anything about still alive when all this shit started anyway.”
“But it was your home,” she tries, brushing her fingertips over Val’s knuckles.
“Ain’t no more.”
Val knows she’s being too deadpan, knows she’s treading that thin line between needing support and grinding Liara’s last nerve with her stubbornness. “I just don’t want to talk about it.”
She feels Liara grip her hand a little tighter, press the palm to her lips before she says “I dug up some of Councillor Valern’s more interesting personal emails, if you care for lighter reading.”
Val does laugh this time, just a little, and repays the kiss with a few of her own, along temple and cheek and neck. “There are so many perks to dating the Shadow Broker.”