Selar stood near rows of tilted gray slats, where the soft green glow of Kithoi poured through the window blinds and trembled over sparse furniture in stripes of light. He held two hundred grams of tupari in a clear glass, drank it without tasting it except for a hint of sugar burning against his throat. There was a vid screen displaying the Mannovai news in orange on the wall behind him.

"The Alliance is forcing our hand further each day, make no mistake," Ambassador Jath'Amon was telling a salarian reporter. "Do you think they will stop with the Verge? If the Council won't stand against their reprehensible hunger for expansion, the Hegemony will."

The apartment was a modest size, the usual for the Wards. The living room was connected to an open kitchen and a hallway led to a bedroom and bath. And on his coffee table, next to a houseplant topped with pink oval flowers, a model of the Tecunis sat new in its shrinkwrap. It was covered in holofoil stars while an excited exclamation of galactic common curled around it.

Official Union Memorabilia! Accurate, Exciting! Relive First Contact with friends and first circle!

Selar glanced at it, filled the glass again and brought it to his mouth. He looked away out the window and watched the buildings until they were nothing more than neon lines and colors.

It was the fourth day he had done so.

And when he arrived on the Presidium for the latter half of his fourth shift there, Meiko Ogawa of Tiptree walked down a set of silver stairs surrounded on all sides by a dozen humans wearing colorful formal attire that complimented her own. There was a high ceiling above her that glittered with glass windows full of sunlight, illuminating everything except for the long black hair falling over her shoulders.

But despite the luxury of the embassies, the human procession had the quality of a funeral to it, one where the deceased had been revealed to be a con man and a cheat during the eulogy. Meiko walked silently behind Ambassador Goyle, whose expression was mournful and betrayed at the same time.

"This is an outrage," a sharp-nosed man was seething as they descended. "The batarians think they can bully us, threaten our stock markets, and the Council does nothing."

The line of Goyle's mouth grew very thin. She stopped moving and the other humans halted in one united, obedient movement. The man shrank beneath the combined gaze of the group, then gathered his courage and continued, "Ambassador, we have to start contacting the investors of those colonies. This isn't only about the Verge-"

"You will hold your composure no matter what this is about," Goyle interrupted before he could say another word. She began moving again, and the others followed suit. They reached the bottom of the stairs and dispersed into the greater crowd of the lobby.

Selar waited for Meiko at the front desk, watched all of it happen. He leaned against the desk as she wove through the crowd toward him. He had been anticipating the moment for hours, dreaded it now that it had arrived. It felt like he was floating in the reduced gravity of the ring.

And what he wanted to have, secretly, was a pretty line for her like here's looking at you, kid, and a big clear umbrella. He wanted the fake sunshine outside to burst into a drizzle just long enough for him to open that umbrella for her while the vid credits rolled over both of them.

"Are you all right, sir?" the asari behind the desk asked him.

Selar glanced at her with a clouded expression. What he actually had was a C-Sec issued pistol that he had been taking apart and putting back together to cope with the boredom of the ring's outpost and a message on his omni from T'Ven that another officer was in the hospital courtesy of an unlicensed and untraced assault mech.

"I'm in the wrong type of vid," he explained quietly.

The asari opened her mouth as she puzzled over that, then closed her mouth and went back to work.

"I'm sorry I've kept you waiting, Constable," Meiko said when she reached him. "The negotiations have become tense as of late."

He dipped his head politely and didn't mention the understatement. "It's not an inconvenience, Miss Ogawa."

And the Presidium was just as Selar expected as he escorted her to the apartments, yet somehow less than he remembered from his own time as a bright eyed rookie. The trees were very tall above him, with green leaves that never stopped moving in a computer-orchestrated breeze. Everything else was sky and metal and sparkling water.

But there were no leads or connections to Tayseri be found. Any answers were behind doors that only Special Tactics and Reconnaissance could hope to open, and the markets that the hanar called Opel had spoken of held no flowers, only an elcor who tried to feed Selar a cake dusted with moss and sugar when he stopped there. The batarians were too spooked to reveal anything at all.

In fact, the batarians on the ring had adopted an expression that usually involved a knife pointed right at their eyes. It didn't suit the wealth that they flaunted, nor the servants and mistresses that trailed behind them in heavy silks.

Selar was at a loss about all of it.

Meiko was subdued until they reached her apartment. She then set her bag down on the counter, clutched it tightly and asked, "Would you like to stay? I'd like to make you a cup of tea to thank you for your trouble."

"I have to be going," he answered distantly. He leaned over his omni, scanned the room. He hoped he looked busy and knew that he probably didn't. No one wearing a badge on the ring ever did.

And then she asked, "Do you dislike me, Constable? Is it because I'm human?"

Her voice sounded like glass.

Selar blinked in surprise, looked up from the omni-tool. When their eyes met he inwardly debated whether telling Meiko Ogawa of Tiptree that he disliked her because she was a human would be worse than telling her the truth, which was that he thought she was lovely enough to commit a level three Union felony for.

"I just don't mix my personal and professional lives," he said, pushing the thought aside. He looked back down at the omni and added, tugging his jacket with his free hand for emphasis, "Tea with you seems rather personal."

Meiko studied him for a moment, let go of the purse. She went to a white porcelain teapot on a counter and turned to him as it hung by its wooden handle on her fingers. "This is a professional kitchen grade teapot," she informed him quite seriously. She wiggled it. "It can withstand a thousand galactic standard degrees and it makes very professional tea for very professional Constables like yourself."

And then she waited.

Selar raised a brow at her, but he closed his omni-tool with a tap against his wrist.

Meiko placed the pot in the center of her round dining table. A matching set of cups followed as he sat down, then she dropped tea leaves into the pot and poured steaming hot water from a carafe. The steam curled around her wrists and pale hands as she worked, then eddied and trailed along her dress when she turned to retrieve a pair of napkins from the counter.

On that afternoon the dress was still white, but also light blue. The secondary color of the dress changed every day, still pressed and high collared with Meiko Ogawa hiding somewhere beneath it. The fabric had gathered along her waist and she smoothed it with her hands.

And he should get up and leave immediately, Selar thought as he watched her. But he didn't get up. Instead, he shifted nervously in the chair and his knees knocked the underside of the human-sized table.

The teapot rattled violently.

Meiko glanced over her shoulder, smiled faintly. She returned to the table and poured them both cups full of bright green tea. She said, "You're not very good at being tall, are you?"

"It's not usually a problem," he replied unsteadily, and carefully stretched his legs.

She sat down with him. She acted as if they were playing a joke together while she watched him bring the cup to his mouth. "So, how is it?" she said, almost in a whisper.

Selar let out a small noise that might have been a laugh if he was someone else. But he felt that he was in on the joke even if he shouldn't be. "It's very professional," he admitted, "but you and I aren't so convincing."

Meiko's smile brightened until it matched the smile in the crowd and the smile in the rearview mirror. "Oh, look at you," she said to him.

And Selar's eyelids trembled. He didn't say anything else about it.

He drank with her for a while, didn't taste the tea much. Hers was the same as every other apartment on the Presidium with its open terrace instead of windows. She had hung a wind chime on the terrace, one covered in planets and stars like her keychain. He looked up at it and said, "You haven't been to the Citadel before."

"No," she said, holding her cup of tea, "but it's more familiar than I expected it to be. The people here seem the same as anywhere else." She looked out at the trees. "It's been very disappointing so far."

"Most humans expect it to be different," he said, nodding. "You should go see the sights. You haven't gone anywhere but here and your meetings."

"I should tell you something, actually," she said. The expression on her face imbued the situation with a far murkier hue than the teapot or Selar's eyelids. She set her cup down and he waited for her to continue. "The batarian embassy is going to close when these negotiations end."

"I'd heard they were threatening that," he said.

Meiko seemed surprised that he knew. "They aren't threatening it at all," she corrected. "Ambassador Goyle believes the Council has been planning to let them secede without protest from the very beginning. Without the authority of Council treaties, the batarians will be able to overwhelm our colonial defenses in the Verge." She placed her hands in her lap, looked down at them. "I've been brought in with a few others to make sure the details on our side are tied up correctly, to defend against the accusations that will follow afterward."

His eyes narrowed a little. "What kind of accusations?"

She looked up at him, didn't say anything else. The trees outside sounded like a cascade of whispers as they moved in the silence.

It wasn't possible to hide the concern in his voice. Selar set his own cup down and said, "You need to be careful who you talk to about things like this. It's a breach of confidentiality to even tell me what you're doing in there, let alone that there's going to be a conflict. Salarian officers are expected to report to a Special Tasks liaison when they hear anything suspicious."

Meiko studied him calmly. "Are you going to turn me in?"

He let out a small exhale. "No," he said. "I've decided you're the least suspicious person I've ever met."

And Selar didn't talk to spooks much. He had his own reasons for that.

An OSD appeared between Meiko's fingers in response, like a magic trick, and she placed it next to his cup. "Then I suppose I can also tell you that Ambassador Jath'Amon has a grandson who isn't happy with the current situation concerning the embassy. They've been arguing in the hallways about several things you and your partner might be interested in. They mentioned Tayseri."

Meiko didn't know about the contraband investigation and so he didn't press for more information about it. Instead, he said, "You've been following the batarians because of Vantius."

"Yes," she replied. "I've promised myself that I'll do something if I run into him again."

The intensity in her eyes was startling. "So Goyle didn't insist on an escort at all, did she?" Selar asked. He held the OSD up to the light. "You asked and she went along with it so you could pass the information without suspicion."

"Yes. I'm sorry for the subterfuge, Constable. You and your partner are the only ones who've listened to me." Her composure faltered then, and she said apologetically, "If you need to go anywhere let me know and I'll have business there. I'd like to help you if anything happens."

Selar shook his head. "I want you to stay away from it. The last person who talked to me about Tayseri ended up in the hospital. It's not just people disappearing down there, it's more complicated than that."

"All the more reason my offer to help should stand."

He leaned over, slipped the OSD into his pocket. "All the more reason I want you to stay away from it. I'll look into this for you, but only if you promise to be more careful."

She was clearly undaunted by his caution. But she said, "I promise," and picked up the teapot again.

Selar wordlessly handed her his cup when she offered him more tea and tried not to knock his knees against her table while he drank it. He didn't know what could be on the OSD that was so damning that she would risk recording it. Not even diplomatic immunity would save her from what was essentially espionage against another embassy.

And he felt a little grim about that. He didn't want anything to happen to her.

When he stood to leave sometime later Meiko reached up and began straightening the collar of his jacket, as if he was about to return to work after a quick lunch and she wanted him to look his best. "You're still cute," she said, smiling. "Your partner made it sound like you were mean, but you don't seem that way at all."

Selar remembered Beran threatening Vantius in the offices. "That's just something he says to confuse people when we're working," he explained. "He usually says I'm a marshmallow."

"Do you know what a marshmallow is?"

"I think it means I'm a sap, Miss Ogawa."

"It just means you're sweet," she said softly. "Will you kiss me before you leave?"

He looked down at her. A warm sensation ran through him, one that started exactly where her fingers brushed against his neck. He placed his hand over hers, keeping it against him for a moment. If he kissed her once he would end up kissing her a few more times until he wasn't doing much leaving at all.

"I've made you uncomfortable, haven't I?" she said to his silence.

He said, "Have you ever met a salarian before?"

"You're the first one I've spoken to at length." She hesitated as if it wasn't something she believed would make a difference until that moment. "My experience is mostly with batarian and turian cultures."

That explained a lot, he thought. "Salarians don't really do romance or love," he told her. He hadn't said the words in years and they felt awkward in his mouth. "There's a spring season for breeding contracts and a lot of negotiating about who goes off with who while clout and credits get tossed around, but other than that it's not something we think about."

Meiko was very still, then pulled back from him. "I see," she said. She took a breath and he could hear her hair moving softly as she inclined her head forward. "Then I've created a terribly awkward situation for you. You have my apolo-"

"No," he said, interrupting her and feeling like a cloaca about it when her eyes widened. His voice softened. "No," he said again. "Don't apologize. Look, the truth is that I've done the whole thing a few times but I'm still trying to figure out if I'm bad news about it. And you're a dream, Miss Ogawa. I don't want you anywhere near me if it turns out I am."

"You're not bad news," she said, looking up at him.

Selar nodded politely and turned toward the door. "Thank you. I'll see you tomorrow."

And he left.

The carpeted hallway muffled his steps. He supposed that tomorrow morning she would remain thirty galactic standard centimeters away from him, where his personal space was supposed to begin and where any amorous intentions were supposed to end. He would eventually buy more furniture that only belonged to him and he wouldn't think about romance or love at all. He would keep the vid screen on in his apartment so the world wouldn't be so quiet.

And he would unwrap the Tecunis with its little holofoil stars. Maybe that was for the best.

But the warmth in Selar's body chilled into pinpricks at the thought. He halted in the center of the hallway, unsettled, looked down at his gloved hands and fingers, his jacket and then his shoes. He didn't move when a group of turian diplomats grumbled and pushed past him. After a long time, he turned around and he headed back down the empty hallway.

He tore off his jacket like it was stinging him.

Meiko was holding her teapot when she opened the door again. She looked up at him with dark eyes and a questioning expression, didn't say anything at all. The trees moved beyond the open terrace behind her.

Selar took a deep breath and said, with his perfectly arranged jacket collar crumpled under his arm, "That's a completely average pot, correct?"

Meiko's voice was tinged with embarrassment. "It's just something I bought on discount before I came here," she admitted. Her expression grew defiant suddenly and she lifted her chin. "This is really quite awkward, isn't it, Constable? If you've come back to mock-"

Selar dipped his head down and kissed her in the doorway. The teapot fell from her hands and broke into a thousand pieces on the floor.