Theros was sitting in front of the Councillor Sparatus' office and once again was reviewing his notes. According to them, the Batarians really didn't try to kill him, they didn't try to kill anybody to be exact. The device brought to Theros' lab by his new four-eyed friends was safe, examined thoroughly and should have worked properly. Should have, but definitely did not. He tapped one of his mandibles absent mindedly and sighed with exasperation. There still was too many questions and too little data to process.
The free flow of his thoughts was disrupted by silent click of pair of opening doors, he raised his eyes and saw quite a pretty creature emerging from Councillor's chambers. The female was more slender than muscled but that fitted her just perfectly, she had white gold rings on her fringe and the most piercing, blue eyes he ever saw, her almost silver skin tone was mesmerizing. Theros was ready to present his one of the best smiles with a hint of flirtation hidden underneath but almost choked when recognition finally hit him; she had Vakarian's markings.
"Yes Solana, of course I will try to find him," he heard and before anybody noticed his shocked gaze, he looked down to the notes on his lap.
"It's not quite like him, I know he's alive and all, but… but after all this mess, his withdrawal from the Spectre program… it's like I don't know him any more, like I used to," the pain in female's voice was palpable, undertones almost swollen with sadness and pain. Theros felt his embarrassment creeping to his throat.
"I will find him, I promise," Councillor Sparatus paused for one, brief moment and noticed Theros' presence. "Maybe you will be able to eat dinner with me today? We could discuss everything once again, more carefully. I feel I didn't have enough time for you."
"Thank you for your kind offer but I have a flight to Palaven this evening, the day after tomorrow it's my mother birthday. One of us should be with her…"
"In that case let me know when you'll be able to have long talk via vid-com."
Solana Vakarian, sister of the one Turian he really never wanted to see again, nodded and after short exchange of farewell gestures with Sparatus, walked away without even one glance in Theros' direction.
"Oh, she saw me."
"She definitely did. Don't be surprised by lack of manners there. She hates you. All Vakarians do."
Theros heard amusement in Councillor's sub vocals and waved his hand dismissively.
"I don't blame her. After all Garrus Vakarian now is considered to be a good Turian, saviour of the Citadel. Nobody remembers his previous faults but I could name a good amount of them."
Sparatus shook his head and invited Theros to his office with one, quick gesture.
"She's looking for him? He's got lost?" The venom in his undertones was obvious but he didn't even try to hide it.
"It's not my right to discuss such private matters with you Ris'ono," The ice in Sparatus' voice was enough to bring Theros' thoughts back on the right track.
"I'm sorry Councillor, I won't mention it again."
"I hope so. So back to business – did you find who tampered with Batarians' device?"
Theros raised his brow plate and hissed. "I didn't say that anybody did in any of our conversations, sir"
"You did not, that's very true, but the doctor did," Sparatus sat with grace behind his enormous desk.
"The doctor?" after few moments the information clicked together. "You mean from Huerta? How?"
"Calla Antos, your asari assistant, gave her sample of this gas which almost choked you to death."
"What?!" Theros stiffened in his chair with flat mandibles and his jaw dropping.
"Well, I believe, miss Vormillan told Antos that she must examine it for your sake."
"Spirits, and I thought that today would be a free day from crazy humans."
"I also think that you should know, that this crazy human, as you refer to miss Vormillan, saved your life."
"It was a cough for Spirits' sake."
Sparatus raised few documents just before his eyes and after few silent moments read aloud:
"Theros Ris'ono. Turian. Brought to Huerta Memorial with severely burned air passages and lungs."
"What?!"
"How eloquent you are today. I am also quite confident that you will give me more 'whats'…"
"I woke up in Huerta with this ridiculous mask on my jaw plates and coughed a little. I went home the same day!" Theros stood up and came closer to the big window with an absolutely splendid view on the most luxurious part of Citadel. He touched the bulletproof glass carefully, and traced with the tip of his talon a flight of one of these colourful, little flying creatures who were living on Citadel, and to which humans referred as hummingbirds. "Yes, she was quite unhappy about my departure and wanted me there for few more days."
"Are you surprised? She saved you, believe me. As the report says, it all was just an experiment, no one knew how to treat you. She came up with idea of pyridine chelation and as you can see on your own, it worked."
"So… I should thank her" he started, unsure what to say.
"Maybe. But you should definitely work with her. She's got quite a lot of knowledge. I dug up few things about the doctor, she had her medical training in military facilities, she's seen some action in her life. Use her. I'm not able to assign a Spectre to this case, but definitely you should do investigation on your own."
Now Theros was confused. Councillor Sparatus just had given him rights to do whatever was necessary to solve this puzzle.
"I'm not a Spectre, I can't work like one of them," he pointed out.
"You had your Spectre training, it'll do. But try not to kill anyone."
"But why?"
"Well, Ris'ono, this Batarian magical device at first wasn't assigned to do the warm-up in your lab. By the explicit wishes of the Batarians' science committee, first showing was scheduled before… let's say bunch of important people. Like galaxy-level-important."
"By galaxy-level-important you mean…"
"I mean few Primarchs. Not to mention few admirals and well… myself. And salarians. And asaris. And humans, volus, hanar… Please, don't make me to name almost every sentient and self-aware species in universe."
"Sir, you're not trying to tell me that this device was prepared for an Galactic Expo?"
"That's exactly what I'm not saying, due to the fact that nobody should have such knowledge," he said diplomatically.
***
Two hours later Theros Ris'ono was standing in front of one of doctors room at the back of Huerta Memorial and thinking hard about how to explain to a squishy, soft-skinned little human that she had just dragged herself into some intergalactic mess with one, very unhappy, Turian scientist. After all she just tried to do her job. By a more or less fortunate incident she saved him and that alone complicated everything hard enough.
He raised his hand to knock on the door but before his mind transferred that wish more precisely to muscles of his fingers, the door slapped him hard in the face and one black figure launched itself to a run.
"You motherfucker!" a little, redhead human ran past after the black persona. She had blood all over her face and nasty bruises on her temple and cheeks.
With one quick motion Mia Vormillan pulled out a gun from under her doctors overall and shot still running figure.
Time slowed a little bit for Theros but he was almost sure that the bullet would reach its target…
As always thanks to Sabaine for beta-reading x
I'm not a scientist, all science stuff here is more or less made up by my twisted mind BUT I always try to put some true information in such things.
