Cara had a lot of time to think. Thane had been gone for a week and a half. That was Beckenstein time and she believed the days were shorter here than on Earth or the Normandy, about the same as the Citadel. She had no stable sleep schedule that conformed to the circadian rhythm here. She tried not to think because any thought she had would then belong to him if he asked the right question. He always asked the right question, or the question that led to the right question. If she managed to avoid telling him while lucid he would always ask under venom: 'What is it that you do not wish to tell me today, Drala'fa?'

She always had something. It would pour out of her in earnest explanation, helpfully telling him exactly how to ensure she remained exactly where she was, exactly who she was.

He had politely informed her before he left that she would be able to research whatever she chose from the lists of subjects he had already approved. Leave a handwritten list on her bureau and bound reference material would be delivered. No tech. Her reputation and his careful inquisition regarding her hacking ability assured that. She'd only ever been given data pads without Ethernet access, now only stylus and paper. Food was also delivered.

She was autonomous for the first time. No chip. No demands. No requests in his absence other than that for her own safety she abide by the limits he had set and knew she understood in themselves and in regard to the potential consequences of violating them.

She had no idea why he did not just shut her down via the chip and have her fed or bathed by staff. Possibly because that would mean someone else would touch her, possibly abuse her, and he wished to avoid that, her lucidity being the best guard against that outcome. She could be counted upon to maintain discipline while it would put the staff she valued at risk of perceived or overt mistreatment or neglect according to Thane's judgment.

Thoughtful. He was ever thoughtful.

She had developed a mental discipline much like what someone might do to survive being forced to exist on a bed of nails. Don't put too much pressure in one place. Distribute the weight. Try hard not to think of the fact that if he did not return, she might be killed in her sleep or shut down to die of insensate dehydration. Though if she knew him, nobody else had control of her chip and he took the controls with him. She still had not determined the mechanism, he never seemed to hold controls and she never saw them used. Through some discipline of her mind, the pain of captivity could not be ended, but it could be mitigated if she were careful.

Try hard not to think.

She mechanically bathed, dressed, ate, studied. Study was a blessing and it kept her busy, kept her mind from spinning on what she did not want to tell him.

Sleep…

Sleep did not come easily, but that was not a major concern. She had no real schedule. None of his demands required that she exhaust herself. She had spent most of her sleep time shut completely off with the chip. He had encouraged her to rest when she wished, even excusing her from public display at times if she were tired. It gave her some freedom and some rest and also doubled as a vulnerable state where he would often wake her, venom already deep in her blood, and she was always joyous about the gift of his presence.

He didn't trust her to not kill him in his sleep, but he also hadn't asked whether or not that was an ambition of hers. Maybe he had and she didn't remember. Maybe she'd had a plan and he asked her to forget it. What she believed to be true was that if his life was in danger and she saw a threat to him she would protect him. She hadn't volunteered to tell him that, those circumstances being unlikely, although certainly amusing and entertaining in his eyes.

Why would she alert him, protect him?

Because she believed him when he told her she would die if he died.

He disagreed idly with her logic, career choices and life path as an intellectual exercise, but that was counterbalanced by his insistence on her value to him, on her being all things precious to him. He was not a man who admired only logic and she knew he was the devil quoting scripture incarnate, tongue in cheek baiting and then blunt moments of admiration or approval. It was narcissistically dictated, that he believe she was perfect because she was his, but he did express that sentiment often. She had not always been in that state, she had learned to create and maintain it, but his corrections and demands had turned to approval and praise.

She was an intelligent, well trained and valued pet. Something he knew he would never be able to be himself. He knew he would have died in the first ten minutes of captivity or shortly after. Her ability to survive was something he admired. Her logic, career choices and life path still fascinated him regardless of the personal expense and difficulty they presented to them both. Prices he never would have paid himself, choices he could not conceive of as logical.

What he could not entirely dismiss was that they worked. They had worked out in the real world, they did work under his roof, and he could not predict them.

He was afraid of her and that was interesting. She thought he enjoyed that aspect of her as well. No matter how many times he laughed at the things she did not wish to tell him and appeared surface amused, he listened. He compensated. He changed his home, changed his questions, changed himself to conform if she found a weakness. He was intellectually condescending because that was his style of speech. She was genuinely condescending and if anything he encouraged that in her. His envenomed devotion drew out expressions on his face and voice, in the lines of his body and the gestures he made, where darkness, twilight and blur created the image of a man who shed irony and enjoyed complicated and simple moments, the effects of her inviolate nature and his admiration.

What those moments meant to him was revealed through pattern and request, repetition and expression. He wanted her to know that he found her charming, intelligent and beautiful. He told her often enough to be effusively complimentary. He forced lip service from her in many ways, but he never deluded himself into believing that service to be her will or demanded that she agree with him while lucid. As long as she maintained the discipline of respect and dignity, she could disagree as much as she wished, which she did.

She'd come to appreciate the irony of the name he had chosen for her. It was not an insult. She had heard it enough whispered with affection, with awe, with passion and devotion to know the word meant what he'd said at the gathering. 'She is mine.' Others may not see her or know her, but he did, and it mattered to him, and he would go to great lengths and expense to maintain her highly stylized anonymity, carefully created to be something he enjoyed. She was now something and someone who was not who she seemed, just as he was not who he seemed. Only he was allowed to see her revealed personality, only she was allowed to see his. Something she could enjoy with him if she chose, that she to him was the most important person in a room, in his mind in many ways more important than he was.

It was not because she had been Shepard. This he had made clear. That she had been Shepard had drawn her to his attention, but who she was in each moment was of value regardless of name or position. He discussed her prior life and learned everything about it that he could, came to his own conclusions and informed her of such. He had interest in that only as an intellectual exercise and a way to relieve curiosity and gain more power over her, but he did not value her because she had once been Commander Shepard.

He valued her because she was who she was. He had not robbed her of self. He enjoyed that she possessed herself fully, that trauma, death, resurrection and captivity left her unbroken. She was Whole in the Drell sense. A vessel that could hold many things. He could choose to fill her with whatever he wished; her will, her self, her opinions or his idealized version of her where she would not only allow, but want him to touch her.

He did not hide his admiration, did not attempt to insult her. Drala'fa was a term of endearment and devotion, and if she chose to hear it as an insult she would be wrong. He would enjoy it if she were wrong, correct her politely. If she took insult where compliment was intended only because she chose to see everything he did as a lie to make her view of him simpler than it should be that would be missing the subtlety, the joke, the point, the artistry, the craft.

He could not help but care about her opinion. The more she studied him the more apparent that became. Respect for her steadily grew in his expressions and gestures. They lasted longer on his face, his words less stringent. He was less mocking of her and more often of himself. As insignificant as he strove to make her appear to others, as ornamental, she had found function and relevance. Thankfully he seemed to admire that ability and not wish to take it from her.

For now. All rules, all outcomes potentially subject to whimsical change.

She gave him no lucid thanks unless it was a ritual exchange, choreographed as a dance.

She no longer slept for very long, discovering this pattern in the time he had been gone. She could only sleep for maybe an hour at a time. She closed her eyes. She kept them closed. There was withdrawal from venom. There was addiction to sex. There was missing him. Sleep came with nightmares, where she heard her parents and heard Garrus. Where she saw and heard Senar. Where she saw and felt Alchera. Where she saw and heard Thane. Where there was smoke and Batarians. She was always up with the morning sun, which was a boundary elsewhere but in this enclosed room could come through the shielded window and was safe, would not cause freckles. She chose what to wear from the ever-changing options.

That was one of the more subtle tortures. No way to tell time other than changing external light or darkness. No way to rely on her memories or try to keep a surreptitious calendar. He'd find it as part of what she did not want to tell him. He could choose to take it from her or observe, alter the information. Trying to establish one was too much of a risk. Most tools she could try to maintain or build were useless and theoretically subverted at inception. There were days and nights, and she believed it had been at least weeks, possibly months. How many of those days had been spent with her entirely shut down and timeless due to the chip? How long between her abduction and her awareness? If she were to make a guess it would be near three months that she had been here.

While he was gone, since it was not required that she be in a public spot to be observed by him or a guest, she remained in her room. His room.

Their room.

Not too much weight in one spot. There is no 'their' anything.

That was a lie.

There were many things that were theirs. But don't put too much weight in one spot. Don't put too much thought in one place. As much as those ideas were lovely attempted disciplines, they were impossible. He…as intended…was everywhere, of import in relation to everything, foremost in her thoughts whether it was engagement or avoidance.

'They' were a stream of lucid and venom-drugged conversations and experiences that blotted out cleaner, clearer things that had once been her life. 'They' were an always-changing and ever-the-same kaleidoscopic measure of sex at any moment, for no reason and every reason.

She remembered being a child and having her first loose tooth, excited about it. Her tongue would press against it and it would wiggle. It moved, and that was wonderful, something was happening and something was changing and she wondered when. When the tooth was gone her tongue still went to go find the empty spot, surprised to not find a tooth, moving or otherwise, her body slower to accept changing truths than her mind.

This was the same behavior experienced as horrific compulsion, a measure of stress felt while theoretically at rest. She missed him. She missed the structure and the expectation. She missed venom and was in withdrawal. She missed sex and experienced it as a gnawing aching hunger. He had made her constantly aware of him, always checking in, always needing to know what was expected, like a tongue seeking malignant movement she'd learned to read. Now she had nothing to gauge. Now that he wasn't there, she should be able to relax but time became even more suspenseful, more unpredictable without him to read, nothing to occupy her, nothing to make her tired or help her sleep. If he were here she would know what to expect and she could provide it. With him gone there was only an empty space she compulsively checked minute to minute, unable to take an action to prevent whether or not she died in her sleep or keep her from wondering what changed when he came back from his hunt.

He had granted her a sense of control over him and now with him gone, her environment was uncontrollable. For all she knew he was in another room on the compound enjoying the idea of her suspense and forced collusion. She had told him exactly what she did not want while lucid - collusion with him. She had said it with dignity, confidence and condescension. He had turned and twisted it in on her and he enjoyed that she had handed a vow to him and had not anticipated how he could turn that into a weapon. It made her stomach want to heave, but she had become expert at not expressing that, ever.

So he had his way. He got to kill someone, kill at her request despite her wish to be remote from any reason related to his actions.

She had thanked him for it.

She had meant it.

She always meant it.

He would have his kill and the smile that came with knowing her protests or contempt were self-protective lies which he might let her keep or might dispel with a few carefully chosen words. Her thoughts and his carefully chosen words resulted in her mind being as intentionally revealing as the clothing she wore, shifting and alluring to him, the way he wanted her, with him able to slide his hand or his thought inside through the exposed rents and gaps whenever he chose.

She wondered if she were still amusing enough to keep alive. She was expensive, she knew it. There would come a day when expensive and deadly hobbies must be jettisoned for more practical and horrific concerns. She had no control over when that day was, or if it was today.

If she were to rely on her intuition, she believed he would not kill her without explicit provocation from her. She believed he would go to great lengths to keep her alive. She could not trust her intuition in the face of someone who made himself brutally whimsical on purpose. All things were subject to change and she was very careful about choosing to believe something, testing it and resting on her conclusions.

Keeping her alive and contained for the status of it, for the challenge of it, for the resultant sex and even argument and insight he would have difficulty getting from another living creature had value to him. It was now the game of his life and he was devoted to it and to her fully. Whatever her audition process, whether or not his whims would have killed her in the first ten minutes, he'd become more devoted as she had become more competent at comprehending the rules of the game, making her own rules that applied to him.

He had told her once that her life was of more subjective and objective value than his own. She believed he believed that. Though there was constant and maintained threat and he had never expressed regret for that, he consistently encouraged her to make the most of her life, enjoy her studies, take what pleasures or satisfaction she could from his company and in essence find ways to appreciate what benefits she could secure from the gilded cage.

That was earnest and she believed well meaning advice from a practical horror who had spent his childhood in a barbed and envenomed cage, his contact with any surface invoking pain. From his perspective she had it easy. He certainly saw her spending a great deal of time moaning and begging for more.

From what she'd seen from Batarian slavers, from what she'd witnessed in the room upstairs while made to watch, it would be naïve to think herself the most wretched creature in existence.

A slave, yes, but alive, granted her mind on occasion and valued.

She was forced to appreciate those distinctions, but he knew she considered herself his judge and that he had to die. Quickly, quietly, without glee or triumph, an end to his potential malignant effect on the galaxy, an end to his elaborate whims that carried suffering as part and parcel of execution. She wondered if there had been slaves before her, would be others after her. He said there had not been another slave. She had been a whim, and considering all the trouble she had been, a whim that he would not repeat. She was unique and worth the time and expense. He did not regret taking her, would not consider letting her go and he would mourn her loss if it became a necessity she brought on herself, but he would not attempt to replace her. That would be a futile effort. They both understood that she knew he had to die. There would be no looking away or clemency, no listening to an argument or giving him a moment to trigger venom suggestion.

He understood this and was only vaguely troubled not by his death but by her insistence that if she managed to escape, she would forget him. He wished for her to remember him passionately or with hatred, both would be ideal. He enjoyed the idea that he would be her only sexual partner for her lifetime, that he had ruined her in so many ways psychologically and physically.

'Just imagine it, Drala'fa, in your quieter moments. I'll be dead, but not gone, never gone. All the whispers you would hear in my voice. Some because you know what I would say, some because you heard what I already said and remember, some because you do not know the difference. Will you tell people that I might have planted trigger after trigger in your mind? Perhaps to kill a lover in their sleep as you wished to be able to kill me? That one day you wake, see them as me, and you're suddenly back here, to right now, as horrified as you are and you feel no restrictions on all the murder in your heart? Think carefully about what I could do with that, what I may have already done with that. Think of the way you moan and your fingernails dig into scale. Will you be honest enough to tell another lover that you miss me? When you wake from a dream and decide it must be a nightmare because your captivity should have been only screams of pain, not the screams you give me? Will you tell someone they are disappointing you when they are not the man who captured and kept you? When love pales next to possession? You would be forced to lie in so many ways, Drala'fa. At least I bear truth with dignity. You will never know the crafted danger you've become until you see your Turian bond mate emotionally broken or physically bleeding, possibly dead because you could not control yourself. It would be best that you stayed far from potential lovers.'

That was the least, if one of the ugliest of her problems. She did not bring Garrus here but he arrived on his own in her mind in dreams or Senar called him forth for trial and questioning. Garrus still might end up at the door and die trying to find her. He might already be dead. Thane would follow her out into the world, her experience of freedom might be exactly as he stated.

That did not matter because she intended to fight Reapers, not bemoan her twisted sexual identity. She should have had enough sex to last a lifetime. She could not allow Garrus to deal with that level of insidious perverse on top of what it meant to his career to be part of a Turian-human bond pair. She loved him and that would be a clean, if potentially pale thing. Whatever life she led outside these walls would be in one direction, it would likely be shorter and more brutal in some ways than her life here. Dreams and nightmares, longing and revulsion would be experienced alone.

No Asari would be in her head ever again. Nobody… would be in her head ever again.

Her expectations for survival outside these walls had been low to begin with. This ironic reprieve from death would not alter her already existing goals.

She had theoretically earned Thane a billion credits for her death, and she imagined he had spent that on her upkeep so far.

She was still difficult and expensive.

She had assumed she was monitored every moment and had at least one tracker implanted. She could not find the cameras and she could not find the tracker but she had to behave as though she was watched every moment, likely by multiple people, and that the tracker would set off alarms if she was beyond his set boundaries. He spent fortunes on clothing and jewelry she wore once. Security was already in place here, he would not balk at the expense of keeping her entirely caged in, monitored and analyzed in his absence.

She wondered if the 'collusion' of him killing on her invoked command was an intended trap to gain her confidence or push her to despair or both, something to distract her and make her intention slip. Something to make her panic. Either would work for him. For each outcome he would have a counter plan. He would watch and see whether or not she would try to talk to staff or gain their confidence.

She tried to keep her thoughts disciplined. She tried to hold her shape but she felt like origami being unfolded and denied all structure unless he allowed it. Reduced to a plane smoothed out with Drell fingertips and venom. Bones broken, muscles slit from moorings, puppetry complete.

What would he try to fold her into?

What would he succeed in folding her into?

She was folded into a 'they.'

She was not a person who hated. She would not allow that to change. She did not hate him. That he would not get. Whether it was a missing component in her head or really was her own choice, she did not hate him.

Part of her admired him. That was sick, and she knew it. That was also why she did not think of Garrus, did not think of her parents, and spoke only to herself. She tried to forgive herself for feeling that way. He was good at what he did.

She…was now what he did, and he excelled in that endeavor.

She did not think she would ever speak aloud to an imagined presence again. She had learned silence and solitude. Her spoken voice was too vulnerable. The inside of her head was too toxic. That part of her life was over, regardless of whether she was here or restored to the Normandy by some miracle.

Part of her was perpetually cast into unwilling illusion where she was in love with him, his induced venom pull of soft words, gentle hands, his ardent expressions and gestures. He had learned of her childhood spent partly romanticizing everything Drell and he extended it into fantasy. Her imaginings of starlight and sand, beautiful people and graceful lives had been discovered. He had been delighted by that, used that as a foundation to build upon. He embodied everything that was ancient Rakhana, all her images of the mythically framed planet before her fall. Her art and traditions were reflected in the cloth they wore, the impeccable décor and the motifs of jewelry.

The fact that he embodied that planet as it was now, poisonous, toxic and void of sustainable life was only an image for her lucid state, something to helpfully contrast with how effectively deluded he made her. Knowledge of both states of existence was required for her continued survival. If she was unaware of the danger she might stumble out into death unknowing and unheeding.

If she were unable to indulge in the beauty of a tent pitched in starlight and sand…she would be no fun.

He appreciated the distinction, how could she not?

He made her forget the outlying death and traps, everything that kept her here. He made her forget she was a prisoner and she only remembered that he adored her, wanted the best for her, wanted her to be safe. Wanted her to know she was precious. Wanted her to express to him what that meant to her romantic heart.

It…he…they…meant everything to her in those moments. She was loving, giving and…grateful. So very grateful to be adored, to be known, to be appreciated. To be wanted so much. She had spent her young life adored and appreciated, loved and supported. She had spent the rest of her life alone, isolated and scrabbling for purpose to replace that loss.

To be adored and appreciated and supported again was apparently the price of her soul, one he would pay gladly.

That he surpassed the love she'd felt on Mindoir from her parents, expanded on it and tailored it to her was horrific and beautiful.

He made her forget that she was being raped in front of a crowd. He didn't just make her beg…she wanted…to beg until she had to, until it was a pressured imperative, to where withholding herself, her truth, her thoughts from him was a crime. Everything was right because he was with her, and if he was with her and their bodies were touching, nothing could be wrong.

Those were the rules, the impressions, the illusions he cast. There was a tightly bound spell that held back the poison of Rakhana, that allowed her to breathe, everything outside meaningless. Like the pentacle of lore that summoned a demon, the pentacle was her body, her mind, her expressed love. He moved with her, cast the spell, and the lines were never broken. Reinforced by her because if she broke that spell and expelled the demon, she would not survive alone.

He was ambivalent to his own survival. If she killed him that was how he wished to go. If she chose to devalue her own life so much by choosing to end it by ending his, what greater compliment could he receive?

One of the worst parts was not knowing what was real other than the rules. The rules could change at any time but fortunately or unfortunately had not for better or worse. They were the only stability she had, which meant this suspended isolation of his absence was a new flavor of torture. The rules had remained the same from his first few minutes: 'Lack of provocation on your part will not result in lack of potential violence or rape on mine.'

She could never tell if he was disappointed or approving that she did not try to kill him. He stopped giving her the chance after she had turned it down definitively enough times. She was sure if she lifted her head, asked him for the opportunity…he would grant her an exception and would enjoy seeing what it was she wished to try. Her forte had never been hand to hand combat.

Those that came to his gatherings had no idea he was assassin trained, that he wasn't simply a thief in a stolen den, a bored peacock influence trader comparable to Donovan Hock. They had no idea he preyed upon them month after month, that alter egos took contracts unseen.

She had no doubt he could beat her in hand to hand easily in seconds. It would be disappointing to him, potentially deadly to her. He had never asked her to demonstrate any of the skills she had been known for as Shepard. He was not interested in her maintaining fitness, combat discipline or weapons skills or displaying his own. If she found herself inadequate, and she did, he need not test further. From the way she had seen him move, his speed and his observational capacity, she was not interested in testing him.

There had been no violence unconnected to sex, and then only pain that was connected to a response in her or a reaction he wished to get that if he could get another way, he would. He made allowances for her forgetting his direction if it was something like keeping her eyes on him. He gave her leeway. He never hit her to get his way. He was patient with her as an adult might be with a somewhat forgetful child, which was, she imagined, a common attitude of Drell toward humans. She did not know if his disinterest in pain as a goal in itself was real or if he beat her every night, asked her kindly to forget and applied Medigel, but she didn't think so. He didn't need to cause pain to get his way because all he needed for that was her understanding of avoidable consequence, his venom and time. She believed his cruelty could and would extend to others to the point of torture or death, but she also believed that he granted her the right to make mistakes, the right to forget and did not, in fact, wish to inflict pain on her or another. He would be disappointed if it came to that.

He did not care about the pain. He also did not care about the people who might have it inflicted on them on her behalf. He preferred more subtle methods, brutality reserved for those who could not understand any other way. He believed her capable of thought, of cooperation, and that…made it worse.

She did not doubt he would cause pain, just that he as a personal preference would rather that it were unnecessary. If he came back and she had attempted to speak to someone from the maintenance staff or pass a message, she had no doubts he would kill them. Possibly all of them without remorse while making sure she knew it had been her choice to bring it about. He would kill their children in front of her if it struck him as a necessary lesson so she would not repeat her mistake.

Absolutely nothing she said would alter that course of action if he chose it after warning her it would take place. There was nothing left for her to promise that he could not secure for himself. She had no leverage. He did not trust any of her promises nor would she trust him if he made one. There was no bargaining to be had in any direction.

She knew the memories that were created or that she was permitted to keep did not involve physical pain so much as psychological cruelty, and every cruelty was intended to set a boundary indelibly so she would remember it under duress. He would enjoy crafting effective cruelties if she did not understand verbal warnings and intellectual intent.

Even pain during sex had become something folded into 'their' in such a way that he was always certain she had enough pleasure to compensate for any pain he might cause, did it in such a way that the pain itself heightened sensation. He had learned her body, learned what she wanted, asked her what she wanted and gave her those things so a pull on her hair was something that caused her to moan and arch into him, not wince or draw back. She never drew back through force of training but more and more…never wanted to, only wanted to press closer, ask for more, beg, and take the opportunity to give him back anything he wished as something that relieved pressure and anxiety in her, like a dam breaking, something she had to give.

He preferred collusion, agreement, seeing things his way.

She did see things his way out of necessity and also because they were, much as she would like for it to not be true, like minded in many ways. There were things he did not need to force, places they agreed.

His moments of venom…she had no words that would properly describe the potential flood of what felt like genuine love in response to his smile, his whisper, the way he touched her, the way he responded when she touched him.

It was a lie, and a perfectly crafted, beautiful lie, with just enough truth in it to make her lucid moments properly cowed and ashamed and very, very cautious about the sanctity of her dignified truth and distance.

She felt gratitude that he could not bring her to hate him, because the next and more virulent step would be hating herself.

If she studied or thought only about him the bed of nails restriction did not apply as much. Thinking about him was okay. Like any narcissist he'd enjoy asking her opinion of him, ensuring she had one, watching it change and slide and split into a spectrum based on whether she was lucid or envenomed. He would enjoy hearing about her conflicted opinion.

'What did you decide about me today, Drala'fa?"

'That I do not hate you, which fortunately means I do not hate myself.'

He would enjoy that, she was sure. What would he say? If his voice was in her head and she could hear it so clearly, what would be his answer?

'I am worthy of hate, you are not. I am grateful that you cannot bring yourself to hate me, which would drive you to foolish action that would damage others or yourself. You do not deserve hate. Put it from your mind. Any burden of sin to be borne is mine. Take none for yourself. Your captivity has earned you the right to not have to be responsible for the outcome.'

As slavery went, it could be so much worse.

As a life went, it could be so much better.

She tried very hard not to think about her earlier life because she believed he had primed her to have all thoughts turn his way, all comparisons to him be inevitable and subtly influenced. Her only encouraging voices were her own. She did not want to hear her parents' voices morph into acceptance and encouraging her to make the best of her life here, as he'd told her, to find her pleasures in safety and be protected, spend her days studying what she wished and her nights adored.

When she tried to think of Garrus the thoughts would turn and twist and she did not know if that was the result of trauma, distance, priming…venom…or just her memory shifting and spinning.

She could think of the safety of Garrus's arms, but…Senar…or Thane…or whatever his name was…had provided her with a depth of experience regarding the safety of arms as either an illusion or an excellent example worthy of preserving as memory. He had asked her in excruciating detail about how she felt about Garrus's kiss, how she felt about his bonding, how she had been conflicted, wary, nervous and avoided him.

How Garrus had, in effect, trapped her in a tower and not permitted her to escape. How communication with her had included threats to get her to respond to him.

The difference between them in Thane's opinion was that Thane had the honesty and conviction to place her presence and safety above all other concerns, something the Councilor lacked.

'If you do not believe that he wished to do as I have done, that he would want to have access to your truths, your body and your Spirit as I do, Drala'fa, you delude yourself. You maintained yourself in a state of idealistic childhood, for which I thank you. You had one kiss, forcibly taken. Bond without consent. He is a rapist by Turian definition and a deviant to have bonded to a human. He created a bond and you chose to carry it forward because you believed yourself in love. He gave you no choice. The Hierarchy, his family, other Turians would destroy him if you were to be involved. You were prudent and wise to distance yourself. I do not blame the man for potentially destroying his career for you. I can blame him for failing to protect you, for failing to follow his own desires to follow the weak and failing wishes of a woman who did not understand desire. His loss is my gain and I will not repeat his mistakes.'

Those words set up echoes in her head, self inflicted or induced by venom…or both did not matter.

That Thane echoed her analysis independently was of course disturbing. Now…now Garrus was…she had no idea, she knew better than to ask or to try to find out. With the added cruel detail of being unable to understand Turian speech, she'd potentially never know. If she expressed interest or begged for news, he would likely lie to her, use that as another temptation and control point to exploit in her.

But she believed Thane. She believed her return could in fact destroy Garrus's Councilorship and that as an unreasonable martyr…she had always been of more value than perhaps her inconvenient and potentially destructive resurrection.

She had accomplished nothing since her return except potentially ruining Garrus's power base. Thane's analysis of her mission at Omega had been 'What you needed most was for people to believe that Collectors and Reapers were a threat and yet you minimized the threat they presented. That plague released might have galvanized people to spontaneous action if managed properly. Proving it might have been difficult but not beyond your capability. In the short term more people dead, in the long term more people wary and warned and willing to fight. Is it necessary that they all follow you, and that you save them all, or might you consider allowing people to fight for themselves, as they should?'

Did Garrus think she had left him, disappeared on purpose? She had to admit she had been ready to flee. Did he think she was dead? Was he still looking? Had he given up, accepting her death as he had with Alchera, only this time he had a bond to haunt him for his lifetime?

For her lifetime, however long that was, as Drala'fa?

So when Senar asked her how she felt…she said…because he would get it out of her later, would ask the same questions under venom with that warm slide of trust, his hands on her body and confidences flowing his way as though gravity demanded it…"I am in love with Garrus Vakarian."

"That is a lovely sentiment, Drala'fa, and I wish for you to hold onto it, it assures that the safety of his arms remains far away and mine remain here, with you in them."

He hadn't given her a name to call him. He'd never called himself Thane. Calling him Senar came long after captivity. She had attempted to only identify him as 'The Drell' in her mind. That had made him laugh.

"My name is Senar, Drala'fa. If you take any truth from me, take that, well earned. A name that had not been spoken aloud since I was six years old. A name stolen from me. A name I only reclaimed because it could have value belonging to you. 'The Drell' is far too cumbersome and formal. I suppose it has a certain gravitas."

She had not begun a conversation with him, had never asked a question without being prompted or attempted to get his attention. She had no real use for a name for him. Saying or thinking 'Senar' was tied to all the times she had said it blurred with venom and pleasure and believing herself in love.

'Thane' was better associated with the man in company, the name he was called by others.

'The Drell' was… an attempt at cumbersome and formal, but had not worked as a device to refer to him. Speaking it had amused him and the conversation did not go beyond the word 'gravitas.' He had decided there would be no more words on that subject, only words whispered about her beauty, her skin, the way she made him feel, murmured praise and desire. The only words from her were those he pulled from her and the name she called him when she had no doubts that she loved him and nothing outside the spell they cast together mattered.

She imagined he enjoyed moments of surveillance like this when she was still and silent and then a deep flush washed through her skin. He could pinpoint the moments she could not avoid thinking about 'The Drell' or his hands or his mouth or his words.

She could not think of Garrus, his kiss or arms without a deep flush of personal shame at her inexperience, naiveté and foolishness, and how Senar brought up Garrus's name to assure himself that she still believed she loved him despite all his logical arguments. He was never angry because that was one of his main controls on her behavior. If she still loved Garrus then that was wonderful.

'The Drell' would then slide his hand to cup her breast, kiss at her neck and murmur the benefits of ownership over love and then demonstrate them.

He never told her he loved her.

She…told him she loved him. He never asked her to say it. When she said it he always thanked her for an undeserved gift and kissed her. He never mocked the moment or made her feel uneasy or abandoned, some suggestion or alchemy he must have provided that filled that space with sustained reverence, something he wanted her to have rather than pain. She could not decide if that was a place of decency in him, one place where he would not lie, or whether or not the fact he did it again and again and never told her not to say it was more evidence of his depth of cruelty or somehow ironically the new synergistic dichotomy of her life, devoted ardent cruelty that meant more than devotion alone or the reason for the cruelty alone. Both necessary and intended to reinforce boundaries, keep her inside, keep her his.

The fact that she was not lying was what mattered.

He would mock that she chose to love Garrus based on distance, inexperience and dreams. He would not mock that she chose to love him unasked. He didn't doubt the power of either choice on her inner life.

She…could not stop saying it.

So she did not think about Garrus or her parents, that would only bring pain and the assumption that every thought about them pulled from her would be mocked and twisted with words and venom until they were no longer resources. She could not help the thoughts she had already formed. She could try to stay away from forming new land she wanted to be holy that he would discover and delightedly defile with a twist of his mind, a helpful suggestion and venom-slick persuasion.

So her thoughts spiraled in on themselves until…as he knew…the only safe thing to think about was him and his rules.

OoOoOoOoOoOoOoO

Thane returned to the estate but did not approach her immediately. He received security reports, reviewed surveillance. He watched her. She had been sedately obedient and he was not surprised by that. He waited until she slept. Her sleep had been fitful while he had been gone.

He had done much of his preparation for killing the Batarian in the time prior to the gathering. That had been easy and had taken two days, slaves freed, dossiers on contacts turned over to the authorities to handle, assets transferred into anonymity and then under Thane's aliases.

The rest of the time had been spent on the Citadel and tracking the Normandy's progress, now under the command of Hemorus Orbestan, barefaced Turian Spectre. Orbestan had accomplished little in her absence, much of the three months taken up with searching for her no doubt.

His Drala'fa was right and Reapers were coming and they must be away from Beckenstein. It could come at any time. From what she had told him and what he had recently learned he had no doubts.

Another colony had been taken, this time Trireme, a Turian stronghold that was now abandoned.

His Drala'fa would not remember certain things she had disclosed to him. She had given him the back door code to the Citadel she had put in place and he was able to determine the rest independently. Reports of activity. Councilor Vakarian's insistence on readiness.

She was in truth an excellent unreasonable martyr from a distance, and she was unfortunately right, verification clear in his independent research.

He had also asked her if she had ever saved Drell from slavery. Fortunately, she had, and she had been helpful in providing where and when. She would not remember telling him that either. Although he would prefer to keep her memory intact, there were places and times when that was impossible. Much of her career before Saren had been spent opposing slavers in the outer systems. He began his plans with her as his inspiration and would need her help in formulating them further. She would again not remember helping him. She was ironically the best asset available to help solve difficult problems. The problem of what to do with her. The problem of what to do with him. The problem of whether or not her Destiny took precedent over his destiny and her Purpose overrode his whim.

How he could provide for both her Destiny and his whim to take place without her killing him.

The problem that if he wished to survive for more than the next five years with her at his side, he could not do it here.

He had considered letting her go and rejected that option. He had considered killing her and also could not bring himself to do that.

He certainly would not sit and wait on a metaphorically sanctified marble throne to be slaughtered. If he would not let her go and would not kill her, could not keep her in isolation somewhere with stockpiled canned food and coveralls and a control chip that bored him, he must be creative.

He had her mind, and with that much could be done. Miracles.

He watched her sleep, decided that for now he wanted her body, her warmth, her other miracles. There were a thousand choices to be made, those choices spawning thousands more, but he had missed her and wished to know that she had missed him.

Memories of violet eyes and black hair would become more precious because they were limited now in duration and potential.

She slept on her stomach at the moment, sleep ruffled and chewing on the gripped edge of a blanket. He shifted her hair aside with his hand, brushed his knuckles along the side of her throat and followed with his lips, breathing in vanisfruit and her. He wanted her deep in venom haze before she became aware of him, soft strokes of his hands along her skin and then his finger slipped into her mouth as she gripped his hand as she had the blanket.

She was gratifyingly hungry in her sleep, sucking and licking at his fingertip. He straddled her hips, putting no weight on her, strokes of his hand over her back, careful not to tickle. She was sensitive. Strokes of his nails down her spine, his bent head to again kiss the back of her throat, his hand around her waist. She roused slowly, pulled his finger deeper into her mouth, twisted her hips up against his thighs and moaned vibrations into his hand. He had thought about her in the past weeks, remembering everything he wanted to remember, but had not come, let his hunger build as hers did.

He imagined she thought of him also.

He leaned into her, cock against the crack of her ass and gliding there, both of them trembling with need. He spoke against her ear "Did you miss me, Drala'fa?"

Fervently "Yes."

"Did you think of me while I was gone?"

"Yes." She could barely stop licking at his finger in order to answer. He pulled his finger from her and rolled her over, hands buried in her hair and mouth on hers, her arms and legs coming around his shoulders and hips, clinging to him and trembling.

"Do you want me, beautiful woman?"

"Yes, please."

"Do you want me to stay with you, protect you, let you know you are mine and always will be?"

"Yes, please."

"As you wish, Drala'fa."