"You said your father 'would have' loved the eggs. Humans live long lives. Isn't he alive?"
"Long lives?" She shook her head. "Yeah, maybe. Guess I've spent too much time with asari lately. 'She's been investigating crime scenes for three of your lifetimes…' 'Dating a krogan's not like dating a human; you just have to stick it out for a century.'"
He raised a brow, attempting a version of one of Father's most annoying expressions. Not that she seemed to care, even if Father smirked.
"Sorry. No, my family and my childhood friends are gone."
"All dead?"
Father shot him a warning look, but she just gave him a half-smile. Half that seemed to say, "It's all right," and the other half, full of wrenching sadness.
"Batarian slavers..."
"They were enslaved?"
"We fought, but… The batarians killed the Hernandez family, and Mom and Dad shielded me from an artillery shell. Not many survived free, and a lot were taken. A hell of a lot more were killed. I guess I was one of the 'lucky ones.'"
He didn't want to feel kinship with her. Not yet. And yet, he didn't have a choice. He remembered every last one of Mother's touches, every last smile of encouragement, every quiet word, and the coldness of Father's hand encompassing his, the icy wind that blew endless streams of water into his eyes, and the way the waves laughed at him as the hanar threw her desecrated body into the ocean depths. He'd fought to save Mother, but not hard enough. He sensed Ellen was not entirely at peace with her own losses, just as he still tried to cope.
"Sorry," she said. "I didn't want… Maybe we should talk about something else."
"How long ago was this?"
"Fifteen years ago… Thirteen in my own years."
He stared at her. She reminded him more and more of Father when she spoke like that. He tried not to laugh—two enigmas were a little more than he could handle at once.
She bit her lower lip and snorted. "You looked like Thane there for just a second."
"And you were just talking like Father—confusing as the land beyond the sea."
"Whether my speech is confusing or no, Ellen has just surpassed me." Father tucked her hair behind her ear with a faint smile.
"You're rubbing off on me, querido. Let's see… I was 'dead' for two years while Cerberus did its whole resurrecting thing. I still don't know how old I am—thirty-one or twenty-nine? Guess it depends on how you count."
"Sounds confusing."
"Most days, it's fine. Then I'll run into someone who doesn't know I'm alive, and then it gets a little… annoying." She launched into a falsetto that didn't really suit her. "'Remember when you saved my kitten from the geth two years ago? Why didn't you tell me you were still alive? Were you mad at me? I spent two years crying for you. Now I hate you because you're working for Cerberus.' 'Sorry, I was kind of dead—who the hell are you?'"
He couldn't help it when the laugh burst out. Human humor definitely had its exotic charm, and the vision of Mother's vine-wrapped body stopped haunting him as she spoke. The style of humor, mocking impressions, had always amused him. He hadn't stopped laughing for hours after he'd overheard Constable Hoya imitating Bailey.
"The messages are the worst part. I've gotten so many damned remote guilt trips, Chambers has to tie me down to check the damned things. 'No exclusive for your favorite reporter?' 'Feel guilty yet for destroying Zhu's Hope?' No, no, I don't. Just fuck off."
That rumor, of the Commander completely destroying a human colony was correct, then, and it seemed Father hadn't heard it from the flickering of his lids.
"A colony." Father turned a pale green. "We worked so hard to save your people's colonies, Siha, risked our lives for them, but you destroyed an entire settlement."
"ExoGeni destroyed it, not me. They knew that the Thorian they built the colony on top of could control minds and they let the colonists suffer on purpose. We just destroyed every last living Prothean. Don't tell me there's a difference, because there isn't."
"They were innocent, Siha."
"And the Protheans who were indoctrinated weren't? I saw what happened to the possessed—they turned into mindless thralls that went berserk once we took the Thorian out."
"Then an act of mercy, though I wonder if it can be truly called such… The shadow of Mindoir tainted your actions."
He couldn't help the wave of warmth that rushed through him for her. Father had always been a little rough on Mother in understated ways he'd only grasped later, but he had never seen anything like this. Ellen seemed better equipped to deal with his crap than Mother had been, and he knew that this hadn't been the first time Father had interrogated her.
Why did you sneak that egg, Kolyat?
I wanted it.
And now your Mother won't have enough for dinner.
Sorry, Father.
An apology is not enough, Kolyat. If you repeat the act, the apology is worthless. You must strive to improve in all you do.
I said I'm sorry.
But you still behave the same way. Do you not remember your words when your Mother caught you with the…
Father, I'm sorry. Though he hadn't been any longer.
"And? Feros wasn't anything like Mindoir. You can remove a control chip; mind control spores are different."
"The survivor we met on Illium might tell a different story, as might the rest of the colonists if you had spared them, Siha."
"That's all well and good, but I didn't have a lot of time to lollygag and fart around when God only knew how close Saren was to unleashing galactic Armageddon. We barely got to the Citadel in time as it was. If we'd spent hours more trying to save the colonists who were trying to kill us, every single person at this table and on this station would be dead."
"Leave her alone, Father. You've done a few shameful things yourself."
"It's ok." She grinned. "God only knows how much stuff I've done that I'm actually ashamed of."
"I almost feel bad asking you why you pulled that favor with Bailey."
She smiled, but this time it came tinged with the same kind of sadness he'd seen when he'd asked about her family. "I couldn't stand seeing Thane in pain and I didn't want to see you hurt the way I did after Dad's death. I spent way too many years bitter and empty, doing things that I still can't forgive myself for."
"Bitter? Because of the batarians?"
She shook her head and stirred her food in circles with her fork.
"Kolyat, this isn't the best time for such questions."
"Might as well start talking about it, right? If Dad had just saved my life, I'd have gotten over it eventually, but… He shot my best friend when the batarians caught her and shoved the damned chip in her head. They'd done it wrong, and she might have either died, or 'recovered' permanently disabled. Then he saved my damned life. I couldn't be angry with him, even though I was. Furious. Damned furious. For years. And he was dead, so I couldn't just yell at him and get it all over with. Add in that I was mad at me for failing to save her…"
He stared at his own half-emptied plate. What, by the gods, do you say to that? He expected tears when he mustered the courage to look up, but she just wore that half-bereft smile.
"I never thanked you for what you did, Ellen. So… uh… Thanks."
"It wasn't me. Thank Thane. He's the one who told me what to do."
"You didn't have the obligation. Father did."
"I… Yes, I did. If nothing else, I had to do it for me and for Dad, just to show him that I finally understand why he did what he did. I hope he's looking down from Heaven and can maybe be a little proud of me."
Father slipped an arm about her shoulder and kissed her temple. It didn't make him flinch quite as much as he thought it should have. He really didn't want to like this woman, this usurper, but he didn't have a choice. She'd done far more for him than the man who was half of his flesh. I see why Father loves her. She does what she does because it's what she is—a protector.
"I remember… I wondered how you could seem to tell me you understood that night, even if you didn't actually say it out loud. I see it all too well now."
"Something in common, hunh? It's a damned shitty thing to have in common, though. You're dealing with it better than I did… than I have."
"Perhaps better than I have a right to expect," Father said.