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Shepard had laughed himself silly when he heard Liara planned to go on vacation with Miranda. “For all the things Cerberus programming gave her, she has no idea how to relax and enjoy herself, and you’re even worse! Becoming the Shadow Broker can’t have helped, but you were bad even before then. How are you two taking a vacation together?”
“Excuse me, I know how to take a vacation,” Liara sniffed. “You’ll excuse me if studying Prothean technology to earn my degrees and then trying to save the galaxy from the Reapers didn’t show me at my best, and I do admit, becoming the Shadow Broker has made it harder to justify taking a vacation just for the sake of taking a vacation. But I can do it, I’ve done it before, I will do it again – perhaps – and I will take Miranda with me and we will have a good time.”
Sure, the destruction from the Reaper invasion was not exactly easy to overcome. There were very few worlds that were both inhabited and not actively rebuilding and therefore hostile to tourism for the sake of tourism. Fortunately, as the Shadow Broker, Liara had been able to find an asari colony that had been mostly spared due to its low population, where they were doing several fundraisers for other worlds but otherwise still quite welcoming. It still counted as vacation for Liara and Miranda to join in some of the festivities they had planned.
Liara was even being very good about keeping her checkins with her assistants to one hour per day, max, unless there was a Reaper-level emergency to deal with. Miranda wasn’t as good, but she responded well any time Liara reminded her of the rule they’d set. Rebuilding Cerberus and reworking it to still have a human-centric focus but work with the other races to truly rebuild the galaxy into its potential took a lot, and Miranda really did need to disconnect and shut down her brain for a couple of weeks.
“Your brain’s working too hard,” Miranda grumbled from the bed. “Honestly, I can hear you plotting, love. If you’re working, I’m getting out my tablet.”
“Not working on anything work-related.” Liara smiled and ran a hand over Miranda’s dark hair, tangling her fingers in it. “Just looking at the options for what to do tonight. There’s a Prothean technology exhibition…”
“Ugh, pass,” Miranda groaned. “Unless Javik found his way here and we can hear his commentary, anyway.”
“Agreed. If I were here alone, maybe, so I could be on the holo with Javik, but we agreed that we would be present for each other.” Liara swiped down. “Personally, I’m leaning toward this one.” She held the tablet out to Miranda, open to show a festival incorporating various cultures’ celebrations of love. “I know this stuff never has come naturally to me, so maybe this could give me some ideas for things we could do when we’re not on a vacation?”
Miranda smiled up at her. “I know you’re part Krogan, but please don’t ask me to participate in any of their expressions of love. I’m still recovering from Grunt thinking it was a good idea to hit on me by headbutting me after the suicide run through Omega-4.”
“That was before the Reapers!” Liara bent and gently kissed Miranda’s forehead. “If you need more, you know where to find them.”
“I do feel better… but I could use a higher dose, I think.” Liara smiled and pressed another kiss to Miranda’s head. “This does sound like the kind of thing normal people do on a vacation like this. I think we should go. For some reason, my father never deemed it important for me to know what I was doing in finding a mate.”
“He probably assumed that when you were ready for an heir, you would follow in his footsteps and build them from scratch,” Liara said, and Miranda shook her head with a smile. “Is a child something you would want?”
Miranda leaned her head back against Liara. “Not the way my father went about it. If I have a child with you, she’ll be asari, and while I know this will sound horrible, I don’t know that I could feel like she was mine. So… yes, I think I would like having a child, but I don’t like any of the options for how to get one.”
“There’s always sperm donation,” Liara said. “Not something asari ever worry about, but after saving the galaxy, I saw so many requests for Shepard that I finally broke down and looked into it. You could make requests based on certain traits, but nothing near like the level of engineering your father did on you.”
Miranda shrugged. “Maybe. It’s not something that needs to be decided tonight. After all, the next six months or so, I couldn’t afford to be sidelined by early pregnancy symptoms anyway. Six months from now, Cerberus should have its board of executives in place, and even if they choose to retain me as CEO I won’t be trying to do all of their jobs as well. Your job will never get easier, but mine should.”
“If I wanted a child, would you be willing to be the father?” Liara asked, cuddling into Miranda. “I know you’d feel more like a stepmother than a father, and that’s all right, but I would like to have a child and I feel like you should get input here.”
Miranda sat up, turning to look Liara straight in the eyes. “If you wanted a child, you could have just asked that to begin with. If I embrace eternity now, will I still be up for the festival of love tonight?”
“Probably, you do have excellent stamina, but we might get so into it we forget to go.” The joke landed as Miranda laid back down, giggling. “Is that a yes? You’ll let me use your DNA to produce a child, and if I’m ready, I can do it tonight?”
“It is. The festival ought to put us in the mood for such things, after all.” Miranda reached up and pulled Liara down beside her. “But if we’re going to go to a festival and then embrace eternity until you’re sure you have what you need… perhaps we should have a nap first?”