The next morning started out as innocuously as one could imagine – about as normal as a day could start after a night of rambunctious delights, that is. By that I mean that it was now considered normal for me, when Nya spent the night out of her suit, to wake with a gray arm looped around my neck, nearly throttling me, while its owner slept soundly with her head buried in the crook of my neck.
The quarian's mouth was slightly agape as her head rested next to mine, her eyes closed shut – perhaps the most honest portrayal of what any member of her species looks like underneath the enviro-suits. They're not all ethereal and spectacular faerie-like beings that most individuals imagine them to be, they're perfectly normal people possessing the same facial expressions that humans utilize. I mean, right here was one dozing with the most ordinary look on their face that could be conceived in their sleep. The only big difference in a relationship like this is that they had to be shut away in a suit for a most of the time – yet that somehow gave people the idea in the past that quarians should be treated differently because of that fact.
I was just glad that such an era of persecution had died down dramatically by now. If anyone decided to disparage my wife for any reason relating to her race or her nature to be inside an enviro-suit, I probably would fly off the handle. Fortunately nothing like that had happened… yet.
Nya's breath fluttered against my skin, tickling me, and she murmured contently. Her naked body was pressed firmly up against me, a leg thrown over my torso as she clung onto me for dear life. With another body practically melded to my own, I had to admit that was a little too warm under the covers despite the thin sheets (as usual) but I would not trade such minor discomforts for anything else.
I was not sure if this intense cuddling was purely a Nya thing or a quarian thing in general. I mean, there was the fact that Nya was nuzzling me in this fashion because she was madly in love with me, but also because my body temperature was naturally higher than hers, being a human. Apparently the reason for that was because Rannoch's seasons were not as defined as Earth's, meaning that they had little variation from the balmy temperatures throughout their solar year therefore the circulation systems of quarians did not evolve to pump blood through their bodies as fast as a human's. Perhaps if one were to observe a different quarian with a human partner the same effect would occur: a frantic desire for physical contact all over to make up for a defined lack of stimuli for almost the entirety of their lives. Alas, my sample size for that hypothesis was only going to be limited to one person so it would have to be an experiment carried out by someone else.
Eventually, I would muster my courage, after watching Nya sleep for a few more minutes, to apply a gentle kiss to her forehead. That always served as the catalyst for her eyes to blearily open, her pupils quickly focusing on my face while a smile tugged at the edges of her mouth.
To see the effects of my presence bringing pure happiness to someone… it completely redefines one's perspective of their impact upon another's mind. These simple moments are perhaps the most important points in time that one could ever hope to achieve as proof for your existence mattering to someone other than yourself. In that, you have achieved your grand purpose for your life, you have graduated beyond selfishness. You matter and you are loved.
I could die right now and be at my most content. But then, I would not know if I could replicate any more moments like this. I still had my whole life ahead of me.
Once we were sufficiently roused from our night's rest, we would head into the bathroom for a long shower together. It was our little routine – willing slaves to the process. More eager than willing, actually. Nya loved the water; the flotilla did not utilize any liquids for cleaning as the quarians' enviro-suits had their own decontamination functions built into them, so having the chance to be exposed to water was just as rare if not rarer than getting to step outside their suit at all. The two of us always took showers together after nights like these – we would already be naked at this point so why not take advantage of the moment while it lasted?
Speaking taking advantage of the moment, it was pretty much a bygone conclusion that we would end up jumping the other before the shower would end in the mornings. When you're encased in a steamy box, hands sliding across wet and soapy skin, while staring intently at someone whose face you don't see all that often, some horseplay is guaranteed to ensue.
This morning would be no different.
I'm not entirely sure who started to move in on the other, time seems to slip by me in these moments, but it was such a sudden and natural shift that I would be making out with Nya underneath the piping hot spray, my hands sliding along her back, our tongues dueling heavily. Things would eventually escalate from there to the tune of Nya's desirous cries, and the muted wet slapping of skin on skin. To be completely honest, shower sex is not all that it's cracked up to be – you're constantly trying to keep yourself from slipping and falling, water is a terrible lubricant, and soap is going to get into places where you do not want it to go – but with the right partner and enough enthusiasm, I've found it to be quite enjoyable.
Lord knows Nya did as well.
Once we had finished using the shower, the next fifteen minutes were spent up by some playful re-suiting of Nya's protective covering, with us trading multiple touches, tickles, and kisses before her visor was sealed back onto her head. She was still a little intoxicated from her time being outside the suit in that she was continually attempting to make love to me (oh, the problems I have) but I had to dissuade her each time as we did have work today and we were running late as it was. One would think that with all the action Nya had received last night that she would be in some way satiated.
I was never going to keep up with her libido in this regard.
We took separate skycars to our workplaces and I soon found myself back at my desk in the hospital, subject to mindlessly pounding out report after report on my console, my attention slipping even though it was still technically morning. I could not stop marveling at how everything in my life was all clicking into place at this point in time – this coming from a previously suicidal, despondent shell of a man. There was nothing grating on me in the back of my mind, the future surprisingly clear, that I realized a while back that I had nothing to be unhappy about anymore. I pretty much had as good of a life as I could get now, considering the circumstances. Not bad for a 21st century outcast.
My daydreaming gave way when I started to receive a call via my omni-tool, at last giving me an actual reason to skive off working, not that I had anything particularly important to accomplish. I answered the call using the implant in my ear to direct the audio so that I could be the only one hearing it, much like a cell phone back in the day. Even now, I still draw parallels to the past – old habits die hard.
"Dr. McLeod's office," I said automatically, a reflex that I had developed after working here for a while. I needed to get a secretary one of these days to screen my calls instead of myself.
"Samuel McLeod?" an accented voice asked - female, the sound coming through so cleanly that it was like the individual on the other line was in the room with me. The audio codecs in this day and age were certainly leagues ahead what had been the norm for cell phones. It made those outdated bricks seem like CB radios in terms of the audio quality compared to today's technology.
"Speaking."
"This is Mohne'Traaze. I'm an attaché for the Quarian Embassy on the 9th Ward. How are you doing this morning?"
"Uh, fine, I guess," I said as I adjusted myself in my seat, Rie glancing over at me from her desk. "What can I do for you, Ms. Traaze? Were there problems with the applications that I submitted to you guys yesterday?"
"Hm? Oh, no problem at all, Mr. McLeod. I was just calling to notify you that both you and your spouse, Nya'McLeod, have actually been approved for your Rannoch visas."
I sat ramrod straight, my eyes blinking slowly. "You are kidding. They're already approved? I just sent in the applications not even a day ago!"
"Oh yes," the cheerful voice wheedled. "The background checks work even quicker these days, you see. Standard procedure with the software these days simply runs the name across all the major databases in our queue. Millions of zettabytes of data parsed for hundreds of names at a time. Apparently the turians could only get results for their checks within ten minutes with their current setup. We've managed to cut that time in half, I'm happy to say. And I'd guess that no discrepancies were found because the two of you were pronounced by the system to be approved without any trouble whatsoever."
"I'll say," I breathed in agreement. "That's… well, that's certainly fantastic news. I'm still in shock at how quickly you guys work."
And could you blame me? After having to deal with government bureaucracy for nearly the first twenty-five years of my life, I had grown accustomed to the simplest tasks taking days, possibly weeks, to be completed. Getting a driver's license at the DMV, voting, filing a claim at the courts, everything that revolved around government matters seemed to be designed to use up as much time as possible for the most useless of tasks. I suppose that it should be natural for me to be surprised when in contrast I'm having to deal with an official institution that's, of all things, efficient.
On the other end of the line, the woman gave a polite laugh. "We certainly try to help everyone and get their cases through in an expedited fashion. Now, I'm sure you are aware, but the Conclave only allows less than ten thousand visitors to Rannoch every solar year due to the current political climate."
She meant the civil war, of course.
"This number is expected to increase over time but we encourage all travelers to be on their best behavior. Additional details have been sent to your extranet address containing the range of dates that your visas will be good for as well as a set of rules to abide by while on the homeworld. Don't worry – none of those rules are particularly oppressive, as I'm sure you'll find. They're just guidelines to keep outsiders from stirring up trouble on the surface, to make sure that everyone feels as welcomed as possible."
"I'm certain that you won't have to worry about us breaking those rules," I said as I began to scan through the attached message while I talked at the same time. "I'm definitely not planning to create a ruckus on my vacation, let me tell you."
"Fantastic," Mohne said. "I won't keep you any longer, Mr. McLeod. I wish you congratulations and I hope you and your wife enjoy your visit to Rannoch. Keelah se'lai."
"Keelah se'lai," I said back without hesitation before the line was disconnected.
I've always liked that saying. Keelah se'lai. The rough English translation of the Khelish phrase was "By the homeworld I hope to see someday." It had a very melancholy meaning to it but the phrase was spoken almost reverently among the quarians, like they projected their homeworld in the same light as humanity does with its various deities. Nowadays, quarians could see their homeworld any time they liked (the current civil war between Xen and everyone else notwithstanding) but the phrase was still spoken aloud, more of as a reminder of what the quarians had lost before.
Speaking of all this thinking about quarians, there was someone that I needed to spring this news onto and I so badly wanted to see their reaction.
A check of my chronometer told me that it was approaching lunchtime, so I hurredly slipped on my jacket for an informal waltz out of the building, catching Rie's eye as I was preparing to leave the office.
"You're going out?" she asked me.
"Yeah, going to fetch Nya for lunch," I said. "Just got off the phone with the quarian embassy. They've approved visas for us to go to Rannoch. It's going to be like a late birthday present for her and I want to surprise her."
"She'll love that," Rie brightened. "Chandler actually got us passes last month for Rannoch as well – he's a travel junkie and loves to visit new worlds."
"No kidding. I didn't know that you had applied too. Why haven't you gone yet?"
Rie shrugged and looked away briefly. "We never could get our vacations schedules aligned. We might have to now, seeing as you might beat us there. If I know Nya, she'll want to leave at once. Chandler would never get over the fact that you guys would get to travel to Rannoch before him."
"All the more reason to leave as soon as possible," I flashed a grin at the turian. "I'll see you after I get back from lunch. We've still got that krogan module to train on together, remember?"
"What fun," Rie drawled, mandibles drawn back in the equivalent of a grimace.
I arrived at C-Sec just in time to catch the early onset of the officers leaving for the lunch rush. The taxiing platform of the station looked like a military staging area for gunships, which essentially was what it was designed for. Rows upon rows of landing platforms hung over a pit several hundred feet deep which ships whizzed by to and fro with officers on duty. I had to shoulder past several of the armed policemen, being light on my feet despite the fact that I was probably taller than most of the people in the building.
The station itself had several entrances – I was happening to use the same one on the same floor that Nya's cubicle was located. The interior of the place was not much to sneeze at. A single receptionist occupied a long desk that greeted you just ten feet from the door. The blue holographic C-Sec insignia projected on the wall behind the desk blazed like a beacon, the first thing that draws in any visitor's gaze. Bordering the room were several plants in specially designed trestles – adding some green to the blue-gray plastic/metallic material that defined the building's interior. Bushes, small trees, and succulents blossomed in the cold, artificial lighting, leading me to believe that either these plants were genetically modified to thrive in such dismal conditions or that they were simply fake. In either case, the plants themselves helped to add a more organic component to what was essentially a police station. Not all of these buildings have to look like they came straight out of Orwell's 1984.
The receptionist, a blond human woman, barely spared me a glance as I approached. "Can I help you, sir?"
"Yeah, I'm here to visit Officer Nya'McLeod," I said as I folded my hands behind my back. "Do you know if she's in right now?"
"What's your business with Officer McLeod?" the woman asked, her tone slightly condescending.
"She's my wife," I answered, slightly irked at the officer's indifference. "I'm Sam McLeod."
"Mc…Leod," the woman repeated slowly as she looked something up on her console. "Can you spell that for me, please? Is it M-C-C-L-O-U-D?"
"No, it's M-C-L-E-O-D. It just sounds like 'McCloud' if you say it quickly enough. Scottish pronunciation for you, there."
The officer barely skipped a beat and moved to slide a datapad across the desk. "All visitors need to sign in while we notify your party, spouse or not. If you could please wait by the couches, we'll have you through in-,"
"-In way too long," a newcomer interrupted as he intercepted the datapad between me and the receptionist, shoving it back in her direction.
I recognized the new arrival. A turian by the name of Kurth, one of Nya's old copilots. Kurth was still dressed up in his blue/white C-Sec armor and thus looked rather intimidating compared to someone like me, even though my football player-like frame was a bit wider than him. I had nothing to worry about; Kurth was a good officer and a good coworker – our families exchanged anniversary cards every new year (for our respective planets).
"Long time no see, Kurth," I said as I extended a hand to shake, to which the turian's gloved and bony fingers quickly accepted. "How have you been doing?"
"A little less hassled of late. Been with vice for a few months now, actually," the turian officer said. "Not so bad, just that there's been an outpouring of new cases related to this human-created crap called 'fentanyl.' Apparently it's the newest designer drug – a painkiller - that's all the rage these days and it's causing the idiots who take it to act like brain-dead robots. I take it you've heard of fentanyl, considering your occupation?"
"Sat in on a few OD's before," I nodded, the receptionist now forgotten. "Not really my specialty but the hospital likes to make sure that its staff is prepared for anything, though that fentanyl stuff is just nasty, what it does to you."
The turian gave a sage bob of his head in agreement, eyes blinking slowly. "Well, I won't carry on about the dangers of drug usage to a doctor. You here to see Nya?"
"Yeah. You know if she's still in?"
"Just saw her at her desk as I was leaving. Should still be there now. Tell you what, I'll take you over to her since she's not that far away."
"Officer?" the receptionist stood up, datapad in hand. "Mr. McLeod needs to sign in!"
Kurth and I shared a look. This woman was certainly nothing if not determined.
The turian just batted a hand. "He can forget signing in – he's been here so many times he's pretty much earned his own access. Besides, Keira, the man's wife is a C-Sec officer – he's as trustworthy as they come."
Leaving the babbling woman behind, Kurth led me around the desk and through the double doors that introduced the next hallway. The operations floors of C-Sec were where all the officers were housed, with the executive floors being on the higher levels. Right now, we hooked a right and came upon the main hallway for the floor we were currently on. It was a few meters wide, enough to allow automated carrier drones through and a few small throngs of people, and host to several more corridors that branched away, leading to the various offices.
"Sorry about Keira, by the way," Kurth said as we turned down one of these corridors, barely avoiding a gaggle of troopers strong-arming a resisting citizen down to what was presumably the cells. "She's new here. Doesn't know all of the regular visitors that come here yet."
"If she stays at that desk for a while she'll come to know me soon enough," I shrugged.
"Might need to send a memo or something to prevent any hold-ups in the future, though. But… then again, why is Nya at work today? Wasn't she in some kind of shootout just yesterday?"
I scratched at my beard thoughtfully. "Yeah, she had her required day off but she pretty much insisted on coming in. I think she gets stir-crazy when she's not working. I love her to death but I don't think that the quarians have a word for 'relaxation' in their vocabulary."
Kurth laughed at that. "You need to make her go on a vacation. That woman is as dedicated as they come, you know."
All entirely the point, my good man.
Passing through another security checkpoint, Kurth chatted with the officer on duty for a bit while my gaze was drawn to the wall next to the bulletproof window of the booth. Tiny pockmarks were etched into the metallic surface, the edges ragged and rough to the touch. The markings were arranged in a strange pattern, a gradually descending line from a high frequency of notches to a low frequency.
Bullets from a machine gun carving their mark.
"Still haven't fixed this, eh?" I indicated the bullet scarring.
Kurth shook his head. "Probably not going to. It's a somber reminder that C-Sec is not invulnerable – it keeps everyone alert with the Cerberus attack in the back of their minds. I think it's better than a memorial, at least."
He was referring to the coup by the pro-human black ops splinter group Cerberus that transpired while the Reaper War was still in full swing. Cerberus had attempted to take control of the Citadel and the Council for their own nefarious needs but had been halted at the cost of several lives, mostly from C-Sec as they had attempted to defend the station.
I had not been present for that skirmish for I was stuck on Earth at that time, just waiting out the war not entirely of my own free will. Convenient timing or perhaps just dumb luck on my part. I would probably go with the latter.
I was shown to an adjacent room filled with about twenty cubicles just off of the hall past the checkpoint and bid Kurth farewell. I knew my way from here. I passed by a few officers, giving them respectful nods as I headed to the desk at the end of the room. I saw that there were little in the way of possessions upon this desk – C-Sec would rather their employees kept things tidy – sans a simple electronic picture frame of my face flashing a dumb smile which indicated whose work station this belonged to. I instinctively replicated the same look – Nya liked that picture way too much.
Speaking of which, Nya was still at her desk, and had not noticed my arrival. She was facing her monitor, glancing back and forth from it and from notes in front of her as it looked like she was writing a report. I stood behind for a few seconds, waiting to see if she would catch on, but still she soldiered on with her typing, her fingers a blur across the keyboard. It got to the point where she had written a couple paragraphs since I had started to stand behind her so I decided to clear my throat and make my presence known.
"Sam!" Nya said warmly. "This is a pleasant surprise. What are you doing here?"
I chuckled and placed a hand on Nya's shoulder as I moved to sit on her desk. "I was in the neighborhood and figured I wanted to see the prettiest face in the building."
Nya's gaze dipped downward in the equivalent of a blush. "You're just saying these things to get a reaction out of me."
"It's true! I mean, I just saw your face this morning so it's been kind of hard to get it out of my mind when I commit every second of your expressions to memory."
My wife shoved me lightly, but playfully. "Flatterer. So, what really brings you over here? You usually call ahead when you're visiting."
"Something came up and I wanted to share the details with you. I also figured that we could discuss it over lunch, since it looks like you haven't eaten yet."
"What exactly came up?" Nya became concerned. "Nothing bad, I hope."
"Far from it," I smiled as I stood up, taking Nya's arm and slowly bringing her to her feet. "You have any ideas where you want to go for lunch?"
Nya shook her head quickly in anticipation. "Lunch can be decided later. You can't just leave it like that, you fool! What came up? Tell me!"
Sheepishly, I began to rub at the back of my head as I started to lead us out towards the access hallway. "Well… there's no way to draw this out without you catching on so I'm just going to say it. I got us travel visas for Rannoch."
The quarian stopped dead in her tracks, leaving me to take a couple automatic steps until I realized that my wife had halted. Her arms hung loosely by her sides, eyes zeroed in my direction.
"You did not," she breathed, astonished.
"Sure I did," I said rather nonchalantly. "To be rather frank, I wasn't expecting to get them so soon. These government workers can really move-,"
My recollection was unceremoniously halted as Nya hurled herself at me for a gigantic hug. She had to stand on her tiptoes so that she could lightly bump her visor against my head in an imitation of a kiss. I smiled rather bashfully, given that we were in public, but I enjoyed the affection regardless, warmly returning the embrace to my wife.
"And you deny that you spoil me too much?" A gleeful Nya whispered excitedly.
"If I recall correctly," I replied as I hugged my wife firmly, "you were the one who suggested not only the idea of a vacation, but the location as to where we should vacation to. I'm just abiding by the criteria that you set."
"Keelah…" I swear that I could make out Nya's smile beneath that red visor.
I mimicked the expression, feeling warm from the palpable electricity between us. "Well, we know the location, we have the visas. All we need to know is when we want to leave-,"
"Tomorrow?" Nya blurted out. "Can we leave tomorrow?"
I blinked in the middle of my sentence. "Tomor-… what? I… uh- damn, honey. Tomorrow? You really want to leave that soon?"
"Yes!" she exclaimed. "Of course I do! If we have all the paperwork taken care of then there's nothing preventing us from going. We have a ship, we have the time. We can just pack and leave right now if we choose to."
She actually was striding to the exit in her exuberance, no doubt that she was intent on making good on her declaration. Dumbstruck, it took me a few moments before I ran to catch up with her. I matched her stride just as we exited onto the main floor of the wards, blending in seamlessly with the multitude of races comprising the Citadel's population. The searing brightness of the holographic projections sliding across the walls, advertising their useless products, glared across my retinas and caused the avenue to become awash in their unnatural glow. In the madness of it all, our hands found the other's and clasped them tightly, tethering ourselves to one another. I could feel jitters run through Nya's body from her hand – she was so excited she was shaking.
"Nya, hold on!" I laughed. "Let's just take it slow for a bit and think this over. We've still got to plan out where exactly we want to visit on Rannoch, what we need to pack, and things like that."
"Not up for being spontaneous?" Nya had to call out over the natural roar of the crowd. We hung a right at an intersection and headed down a less packed boulevard, some breathing room finally afforded to us.
"Well, I'm rather hungry right now and I specifically timed coming over here so that we could get some food and discuss our vacation over our meal. Can we at least get some lunch before we go around frantically packing our wardrobes? Can I prevent myself from starving first, at least?"
Nya gave a rueful shake of her head, her eyes impish. "You're so whiny for a human," she sarcastically injected. "I certainly wouldn't want you to waste away to skin and bones. You're a skeleton already as it is."
"Careful, woman," I waggled a finger at her in a teasingly threatening manner. Christ, her snark sometimes surpassed my own, if it could be believed. "You don't get to say that. Oh no, you don't get to quip at me like that after all the spoiling that I've been doing to you."
"HAH!" Nya shouted victoriously. "Finally got you to admit it! You are spoiling me!"
"Aw fu…" I groaned as I placed a hand over my eyes in shame. "You are so aggravating, you know that?"
"As opposed to what?" Nya retorted. "You don't have a monopoly on all the sardonic remarks – I can be just as acerbic as you."
"If I recall, you were a lot more shy that this when we first met. Had I known that you would turn out to be a wise-ass all the time…"
"You still would have married me, admit it," the quarian shot back, probably after sticking her tongue out at me, too. "Besides, you were the only reason why the real me came out of her shell. After being subjugated to so much scrutiny from my peers for years on the flotilla, meeting someone who didn't care about all that kind of forced me to drop all my barriers which is why I've taken up back-talking so much."
"Wow. My own wife calls me a bad influence. After all that I've done, too."
The roll of Nya's eyes was perfectly visible and obvious. "Oh, shut up, you!"
"Thanks for that," I grinned as I could not help moving in close to kiss the side of Nya's helmet upon her hood, cheesiness of the moment aside. Nya laughed in return and nuzzled my shoulder with her head, all acidity dropped between us.
We were almost by ourselves at this point as we walked along the path, just a few minutes away from the main food court. There were only a few individuals in our sight as we passed by a few empty staircases. This hallway was not used all that often for traffic purposes but it served as a great shortcut for us. At least it prevented us from being crammed in a gaggle of people like sardines.
"You know," I mused aloud as we headed down a small set of stairs, passing by a few tight alleys not unlike the one we had first met in, "after all that has happened, after all that we've been through, I don't think that I've ever regretted my choice in letting you become a permanent part of my life – of my family."
The fingers upon my hand tightened greatly. "Neither have I," came Nya's quiet reply, overcome with emotion from my rather frank yet sentimental admission. Our eyes found each other as our heads turned at the same moment, emotions so identical and intense that we were truly operating on the same wavelengths by any stretch of the means.
Craziness. Insanity. No longer words that defined me. This felt right. This felt real.
The empty path all to ourselves, I was staring at my wife with an aura of love completely hazing over my vision and found that the sentiment was returned just by her look and just as fiercely. The two of us, holding hands as we walked down the avenue, hailing from separate worlds yet connected by this powerful bond that ignored race, ignored appearance, and ignored the opinions of anyone else. Our own interconnected feelings about the other were the only opinions that mattered here.
I was so besotted, just so happy to be enjoying the moment that I nearly missed the outline of an individual pop out from one of the myriad of shadowy alleys that intersected the road, behind where Nya was looking, a familiar yet sinister object clenched in his hand. The shadow, now appearing human in nature, was on an intercept course for us, I realized, perhaps a bit too late.
And the gun in his hand was already pointed at Nya's back.
She couldn't see the danger. There was no way that I could warn her in time.
I could witness the man's finger tighten on the trigger.
No… No!
"NO!" I screamed as I pushed off my feet, sending Nya sprawling to the ground from my sudden shove. She hit the ground cursing, but silenced as soon as the resounding bang from a mass accelerator weapon ripped through the background noise of the Citadel.
I heard the snap of the bullet whizzing by my head first before the actual report, a small sonic boom sending ripples up my face. In shock, I clasped a hand to my head in affirmation that I had not been hit, finding no blood upon my fingertips. What little passerby that were in the area all screamed and separated in every direction, and the gunman swore as he tried to bring his pistol back to bear, but not to point at me.
As the deranged human swung his arm for the sights of his pistol to rest on Nya, I realized right then that the man was specifically trying to kill her. This was no mere chance encounter – this had been calculated and planned with my wife in mind.
She was a target to this person.
"C-Sec bitch!" the bald human spat, the purple tattoo in the outline of a Reaper seemingly glowing upon his face, bathed from what little light that filtered down from the rafters above. "Thought I wouldn't recognize you from the chase yesterday, eh? You don't fuck with the Ascendant-,"
With a roar, I leaped from where I was on the ground and closed the gap between me and the gunman in a blink of an eye. Lowering my head, I tackled the human full on in the torso, much like a lineman, causing us to fall to the ground violently. The back of the human's head smacked off the pavement and the pistol went skidding away, but he was miraculously still conscious, still throwing wild punches and kicks in my direction.
I answered with a few blows of my own, ignoring the pain from the man's swings as pure anger coursed through my veins. A well-placed fist impacted solidly on the nose of the cultist, spraying blood everywhere as it broke. As the man screamed out, my hands latched around his throat, fingers digging in his flesh as they searched for his windpipe, hoping to throttle it with all of the strength my grip could afford.
"Sam!" I dimly heard Nya call out. "Get back! Get away from him!"
Despite her cry, I ignored Nya as I fought to subdue the man who had just been trying to murder her. He deserved to suffer – I deserved to know what made him want to do this. He needed to feel fear.
The gunman's face was turning beet-red as I strangled him. Horrible gagging noises emanated from his windpipe, the only air that had been filling his lungs. His mouth was opening and closing desperately, like a beached fish fruitlessly trying to take in oxygen. My own mouth was clenched in hate, teeth jammed together so tightly they were about to shatter. There was no pleasure to be derived from this – I just needed to see in this man's eyes the regret from trying to murder the woman I loved. I wanted him to realize his mistake.
But then I heard the click.
Realizing that I had been foolishly blind, I saw that the human now had something in his hand – a silver, cylindrical object. He must have plucked it from his belt while I had been distracted in choking him. A little red light on the top was pulsating, tiny little beeps emanating from the device.
Something inside me relaxed, a distant part ceasing to struggle as the notion of acceptance washed upon me for the tiniest sliver of moments imaginable.
The human in my grip managed a bloodstained smile, his teeth coated red, and tried to utter something but could still not find the air to give voice to his words. With a lurch in my heart, one of my hands suddenly grabbed at the man's wrist, hoping to wrench the thing as far away from me as possible, as the two of us became a flurry of limbs while we wrestled with the other for control.
Oh my god… please let me live. Please let me see her after this!
I began shouting in defiance when I suddenly saw a bright flash, and a thick green mist rapidly overcame me as the grenade detonated in the man's hand, blowing it off at the stump with a pulpy boom. I only had a few painful seconds for my face to register the blistering sensation as the gaseous chemicals began burrowing into my skin before I could finally scream.
Blistering, raw, agony. It felt like my face was sliding off my skull. My eyeballs burned and sizzled, hot tears uselessly spilling out. My tongue and throat were on fire – every breath felt like I was only fanning flames. Boils seemed like they were springing up in my mouth, in my lungs, covering every single square inch of my insides with pure, undiluted pain.
My own pitiful screams drowned out everything else before I finally ran out of breath (or life) and mercifully blacked out when my body had exhausted all its options for respite. As everything grew dark, I could barely feel a pair of three-fingered hands grab at my arm, desperate to coax me back from the familiar realm that awaited me.
I was unconscious before I could hear the sobs of my wife.
The bubbles rushing past my face felt like tiny pinpricks – a faint fizzing sensation that awakened me to my surroundings. I opened my mouth in alarm but that only produced more bubbles, to my surprise. It was only from that and the floating sensation upon my frame did I realize that I was underwater.
The chill of the ocean assaulted my body all over, slowing my movements and rendering me lethargic. I was freezing, in so much pain, that I did not know if I was even oriented correctly. I could not even see the surface from where I was – everything was so dim and so murky that I had totally lost all my bearings.
I needed to move. I had to swim or I was going to drown.
Powering through the icy feeling around my joints, creating warmth through movement, I agonizingly began to breast stroke my way to what I thought was upward. My fingers were frozen solid at this point, my eyes burning from the saltwater. My lungs ached for oxygen, but throbbed angrily as they were continually denied the precious resource.
A few more strokes yielded nothing, except a building pressure in my head. Spikes were steadily jamming themselves into my skull, spearing a paralyzing pain through my forehead from the bridge of my nose.
Pressure… pain… fuck me, I was swimming downward. With a muffled whine, I kicked to reorient myself and frantically groped upward only to stop when a shadowy object lazily floated in front of me.
With an unheard yelp, I jerked backward, emitting a large bubble from my mouth. I raised my arms – a pathetic gesture – in preparation to ward off whatever had infiltrated my reach. However, the form shifted around slightly, allowing me to view it in full.
It was humanoid-shaped, and listless. A corpse. Draped in a quarian enviro-suit, I recognized those blue accents immediately.
It was Vhen. Here, underwater, with me.
But Vhen was not as he seemed. He really was lifeless. The fabric that wrapped around his form had been completely shredded away, there was a deep slash that ran from his clavicle to his sternum, exposing the pale bones of his ribs, and his limbs were twisted in ways that nature had not intended his body to be. There was no blood – it had all been seemingly drained out as a side effect from being in the water for a long time.
Half of his visor was gone, smashed to bits. Even through the water, I could see the faint outline of his face – to my disgust. Vhen's cheek had been cut open and it was hanging loosely by a few threads of sinew, allowing an unobstructed view of his teeth. His right eye was a dark pit in contrast from the glowing orbs usually found in his species.
Heart nearly thumping out of my chest, I edged closer to the broken quarian, a hand outstretched to gently shove the body away, when an unnatural voice burst from it, grating and harsh, emanating clearly through the water.
"Too… late… human."
Jerking backward, a silent scream emanating from my lips, I hastily shoved the corpse away as the hateful man's words inexplicably came to my ears. I wanted to curse him, to throw whatever profane language I had in my vocabulary at him, to shred his existence with my words so that he could finally remain dead.
If only I had the ability to speak.
Vhen, however, would not depart so easily.
"You've only delayed your reckoning," the voice continued to rasp. "You're only going to lose those you care about most."
Liar! I wanted to roar. You're lying!
"You don't believe me?" the dead man's head tilted mockingly. "Listen carefully."
And through the cloudy gloom, through my myopic field of vision, the vague shape of a submerged vehicle – a car – became gradually more apparent. And yet, despite me being submerged, I could hear the distant screams of someone… female. Someone trapped in the car – they were in trouble!
Nya!
Ignoring the black edges that were creeping up on my vision from the lack of oxygen, I furiously hurled my arms forward in wild strokes, without rhythm. Yet, despite my attempts to reach the stricken car, I was not appearing to gain any ground as my destination grew dimmer and dimmer. A waterlogged cry raced through me, bubbles exploding all around, as I forced out all the strength in my muscles to carry me forward, but it was no use. My strokes became weaker, my tempo slower, my vision nearly gone.
Realizing that I had been underwater for too long, I tilted my head upward, perhaps as a final, longing, glance to see if I even could have made it to the surface. My mouth opened once more but no breath expelled from me this time. My throat constricted in on itself in a vain attempt for air – my lungs felt like they were about to explode.
I then realized that I was about to die.
I could not hold it back anymore. I needed to take a breath. I needed to stay alive.
Nearly involuntarily, but still conscious to fully understand what I was doing, my lungs finally overrode my brain and forced my throat to take a deep inhalation. Salty seawater poured down my throat, shocking me with its suddenness. I barely had any time to wonder how long it would take when a burst of light flared from far away and then I felt no more.
I'm sorry, Nya… I'm so sorry…
"Sorry…" an unfamiliar bray whispered. "Sorry…"
Blackness gave way to blinding white. Everything felt dry… and itchy. Had I been dreaming again? It certainly explained why I no longer found myself in the ocean anymore. But… what happened? Where was I now? I blinked my eyes several times to try and clear my vision, but no matter what I did, I could discern nothing. White was all I could discern – a permanent fog upon my world. Why could I not see?
Blind. I realized that I was blind.
In a panic, my hands rose to my eyes and met a soft cloth. Gingerly tracing the material, I found that a band of fabric was lightly wrapped around my face, colored white – the light emitting its color onto my retinas. Relief sank into me and I uttered a gigantic sigh, the effort feeling like it took ten pounds off my frame. Perhaps I was not entirely blind, then.
It was only after I finally was consciously aware of my body did I realize that I was sitting, or more like reclining, on a stiff bed with thin sheets draped over my lower torso. The mattress was unyielding and the clothes that I was wearing made a crinkling noise whenever I moved. The crap bed, the cheap clothes, it was all too familiar to my exasperation and disgust. This was definitely a hospital that I was currently interred in, I could tell. But… a hospital for what? Pushing past my garbled dream, all I could recall from my most recent moments of awareness was a frantic struggle, a rabid-faced man as we grappled on the ground, and the explosion of a grenade so close to my face.
The stinging. My face prickled as it recalled the pain that corrupted my body. Everything felt scratchy and irritating.
I reached my arms out, too tired to lift myself up, as I blindly searched for anything within arm's reach. My fingers met nothing but the bed that I was on, fumbling at the poor fabrics. I felt floaty, an aftereffect of sedatives, if I were to guess. The sensation only served to increase the feelings of loneliness that were currently overwhelming my senses – I was lost, sightless, and getting only more and more agitated with being trapped in this little slice of suspended reality. I needed someone to talk to – I needed to know that I was not alone.
"Where…" I could only rasp, wind easily rushing through my throat and projecting barely any of my voice in return. "Someone… anyone… please…"
In the background, something rustled. I listened intently – the sound of clothing rubbing against furniture? It was so close that I realized that someone had to be just feet away from me.
"Who…" I spoke out to the void cautiously, "…who's there?"
My hands limply came to my face to pull this damn blindfold off, but just as soon as my fingers hooked over the edges, the rustling sounds surged towards me so quickly that I barely had time to react, and when the gloved hands of someone encased in an enviro-suit clasped my own, I nearly jumped out of my skin because I had not been expecting such forceful contact so quickly.
"No!" a voice urged that could only be Nya's. Despite her accusatory tone, I let out a breath that had been lodged in my throat for some time, relieved. "No, no, no, Sam! Don't pull those bandages off!"
"Nya!" I wheezed in a pathetic sob but complied with what she told me. "What… what's going on? Where are we? Why-,"
Her fingers now planted themselves over my mouth, preventing me from speaking any more. She was trembling, if I was interpreting the vibrations from her arm correctly.
"Sam…" Nya's pleading voice came to me. Her visor must be inches away from me, I figured. Inches away… but I could not see her! "Sam, please try not to talk. You're still recovering but everything's going to be all right. You just need to rest."
I licked my dry lips. "What… happened… to me?" I uttered as softly as possible. My throat felt weird – there was an odd vibration that seemed to travel up my esophagus, like the words were not resonating properly. On top of that, was that a slight electronic tinge that I was hearing whenever I spoke?
My wife gave a sigh that drifted slightly into a keen. She sounded sad.
"You were hurt. Some… lunatic attacked us and you stopped him. It was… it was that man that I told you about the other day… the one that had escaped the skycar chase. You stopped him, Sam, but… he… he…"
"Are… you… okay?"
Definitely an electronic tinge to my voice.
Nya gave a tiny chuckle but one that was saturated with sorrow and I felt a smooth pressure as I realized that she had gently laid her helmeted head against my forehead, her hands gently cupping my face – the closest contact that I could glean from her in this state.
"I'm fine… I'm fine, Sam. I'm not hurt. But… but you…"
I gulped, the lump having to force itself down a gullet that felt too small. I was now slightly shaking from anticipation, worry, and confusion. My eyeballs were now starting to burn whenever I tried to open my eyelids wider, so I forced them closed with a wince and a slight gasp of pain.
It was miraculous that I could even steady myself to speak in the first place.
"Nya…" my voice was on the edge of breaking down from the lack of clear answers. "What's happened… to me?"
Now her thumbs were starting to gently rub my cheeks – a signal that I knew was an attempt to calm me down. My lips mouthed "Please" to her, my breath passing through my throat with a pathetic wheeze.
"It… it was a chemical grenade," Nya sobbed out. "It… you were too close to the blast. Some of it… got in your eyes… and in your throat. They had to… they had to perform surgery on you."
"S-Surgery?" I coughed out, alarm racing through my veins. "What kind of surgery?"
The notion that I might not want to know the answer passed alarmingly close to my consciousness before it briefly faded away. This was something that I could not run from – I had to face the truth of what was ailing me.
I had to know what they did.
With a grunt, I raised my upper torso off the bed, my back giving me hell for doing so, and firmly gripped Nya's forearms as I leaned to within what I visualized was millimeters away from her visor.
"Nya, tell me what they did."
I could hear the quarian swallow loudly. "They… they had to operate on your eyes. You had to get implants to replace… t-the damaged nerves."
She fell silent to let me process the information. The burning upon my eyeballs was smoldering in the background, not intent on letting me forget its sting. I was now more aware than ever that my body was coated in a light sweat, the shaking still not going away.
"Anything… anything else?" My voice was steadier than ever, oddly.
Now Nya sounded like she was crying – afraid at what I had become or afraid at what I would do when I found out the extent of my injuries? God, how much worse could it possibly be?
"Your… your…" Nya tried to say but failed miserably.
Instead, she gently took my hand and guided it up to my throat. My fingers found my warm flesh, able to discern the pulse throbbing through my arteries clearly. I felt skin covered in goosebumps, rough hairs resulting from an untrimmed beard, and as Nya slowly moved my hand further down my neck, my fingertips brushed against something metallic.
My first thought was that it felt like a port of some kind where one would normally plug in electronic equipment. But further inspection through my touch revealed that it was circular in shape, barely protruding above the skin and less than a centimeter in diameter, covered in a fine grate, and actually embedded in my throat.
No… it was not…
"What… is this?" I whispered in horror, now having an inkling as to why there was an electronic hint every time I spoke. Nya did not answer as she had fallen silent while witnessing what little facial features were revealed on my face slide from anxiety, to terror, and finally to a melancholy denial.
I did not know the exact details of the unsaid operation that I had underwent, but I knew what a tracheostomy site was through touch alone. The hole in my throat – the slight wheeze – it all made sense. But why would I need to have a tracheotomy procedure performed on me? Surgeons only did that if one had severe cancer of the throat or if one's vocal cords were terribly paralyzed from trauma.
Paralyzed from trauma.
Paralyzed.
"My… voice," I mumbled, tears punching through the barrier of pain and soaking into my blindfold. Hot trails raced down my face as reality came crashing up to meet me.
Now I knew why I could not talk properly. My vocal cords had been so irreparably damaged from whatever compounds that I inhaled that I had nearly lost my ability to sound words. What little voice that I had left was only a pathetic gasp, barely discernable past my lips.
"I'm so s-sorry, Sam," I heard Nya speak, her own voice sounding distant even though I was holding her in my arms.
Teeth clenched, eyes shut, the tears continued to flow – liquid fire boiling away at my eyes as the droplets reacted to the fresh implants in the soft tissue. I hiccoughed out a nasty sob, my body beginning to wrack as I started to cry, terrified and dismayed at what had been ruined by one man's terrible actions. How quickly everything could turn upside down for me.
Nya hurried herself into the bed with me, holding me close as I wept. My head rested gently against her visor once more as we laid back down; the maimed human with his quarian lover. I'm sure I must have looked so pathetic in that position, but I was glad to have someone to hold on to. I needed the support – the love – her.
Even as the tears ran dry, I still cried for all the pain I had endured and had yet to endure. Nya made sure to cry along with me, but never let go of my body to remind me that she would always be there.
"No matter what," Nya croaked after what seemed like hours have passed, "you're alive and you're with me. You will be fine, Sam. You will be fine."
Her words were so sincere about me getting through this that I almost believed her.
Almost.
It must have been hours later when I was allowed to remove the blinder from my face – I can't really recall when – and no matter how many times the doctors tried to dissuade me, I could not stop rubbing at my eyes to try and stop the pain.
Ever get the sensation of there being something in your eye? That aggravating itching from a stray bit of something getting lodged underneath your eyelid? Now imagine your eyelids being completely caked with junk underneath and every single conceivable square inch of surface area upon your eyeballs flaring up in anger. It literally felt like something was actually gnawing on my corneas and I was only going to continue rubbing at them until the medical staff threatened to bind my hands to the bed to prevent me from damaging my eyes any further.
Once again I had become reduced to being a patient in a hospital. I thought that I was done with this sort of thing! At this point I had been admitted to hospitals more times in four years than I had for most of my pathetically short life.
The staff had given me a mirror so that I could examine my injuries in greater detail. The first thing that I took care to notice were my eyes, obviously. They were red all around the edges (my constant rubbing only exacerbating the skin irritation) but for the most part they did not look distinctly too different. If I looked hard enough, though, and at the right angle, I could see faint traces of wires glowing within the soft flesh– the implants needed to facilitate the healthy tissue that had not been damaged from the gaseous attack.
Apparently a good portion of my eyes had been dissolved by whatever chemicals were packed in that grenade. It was only fortunate that I had been unconscious so I could not register the undoubtedly catastrophic pain that would have ensured from wounds like that. The implants helped to rapidly regenerate any of the missing tissue and to prevent my body from rejecting the newly grown material. That meant that my eyes were no longer 100% percent natural, but an amalgamation of organic and synthetic components mimicking the function of an eye. Aside from the irritation of the surgery's operations, I had to note that there was not that big of a difference that I could discern.
My throat was a whole different story. On the surface, it just looked like someone had tried to shove a metallic port into my neck in a vain attempt to kill me, but I knew that the port itself was probably one of the reasons that I was alive right now. I put my fingers up to the port but did not feel any air hissing through it. Strange, I was still breathing normally. That was not typical of a tracheotomy. I would have to ask the doctors about that.
The door to my room opened and my head perked up as Nya walked in with a visitor in tow. I smiled broadly at the presence of my wife, which cooled slightly as I now studied the new arrival with her.
The quarian that accompanied Nya was perhaps a few inches taller than her, with a rose-colored visor and slight accents of golden cloth that embraced his form. The warm fabric draped around the quarian's neck loosely and trailed down his back like a backwards scarf, making him appear to be well-traveled. He (it was obvious it was a he) seemed to be a few decades older than us, judging by his more poised appearance and for the fact that the glow of his eyes hinted at a wiser than usual quality. Immediately my interest was piqued, curious as to why this man was here.
"Hello dear," I greeted Nya, never taking my eyes off of the male. "Who's this that you've brought?"
My voice had actually begun improving little by little after I had awoken. Turns out additional cybernetics had been installed inside my throat as it was a particularly painstaking process to reconstruct vocal cords. The easiest solution was simply to add implants in my throat to supplement my voice by artificially amplifying the breath in my throat and converting it to words through nano-speakers in my throat. Thus why I had noticed why my voice had sounded slightly tinny for the past few hours.
Nya turned to introduce her guest. "Sam, this is Iroa. He's a science officer for the cyberwarfare division on Rannoch."
"How do you do?" I sat up and extended my hand. The quarian returned the shake, his grip light but his fingers firm. "You two know each other?"
Iroa shook his head, almost a majestic gesture. "Oh no, Mr. McLeod," he said, "I was simply passing through this wing to check up on my men. The Conclave is now encouraging all quarians to go to the Citadel so that we can receive better treatment for pathogens. Also, they have more ready access here to vaccines that are critical to preventing sickness among our people. Anyway, I happened along Nya here as I was wandering the grounds and we struck up a nice conversation – with so few of us scattered across the galaxy us quarians don't really have the luxury of ignoring one another. She mentioned that she was with a friend that had been grievously injured and… and I guess I simply wanted to extend my best wishes. I can see that you mean quite a lot to her."
The chuckle I elicited was barely above a rasp, but the meaning remained just the same. Sometimes the cybernetics failed to fully process my voice, I learned, which meant that my wheezing speech would be occasionally emitted without the additional amplification. "Yeah. She means a lot to me as well. I don't know where I'd be without her."
"He tends to get a little dramatic sometimes," Nya cheerfully explained to Iroa.
"Thanks for undermining me there, dear," I grumbled, but was happy to see that Nya was starting to relax more as my condition was already starting to improve.
Iroa scanned back and forth between us, like he was missing some critical bit of information and he was having trouble processing the subtexts. "I realize that it may seem like I'm intruding, Mr. McLeod, but-,"
"Please, call me Sam," I interjected. "I'm still not a big fan of being called 'Mister' in a formal manner."
"All right then, Sam it is."
Maybe it was because I had been confined to this bed for more time than I would prefer and had seen a limited amount of people over that period of time, or it was because Iroa was one of the few quarians that I had conversed with that seemed personable and courteous, able to strike up an exchange naturally. His voice was low, slightly ragged from age, but pleasantly soothing to listen to.
I've got to admit, I was starting to like Iroa already.
The elder quarian then cleared his throat. "As I was about to say, are you doing all right now, Sam? Nya told me all about what happened to you – simply shocking. Ruthless criminals wandering the Citadel, attacking officers, no less."
"Hard to say," I considered as I consciously rubbed my throat. "I suppose I'll know how debilitating these injuries are going to be over the next few days. I think the painkillers they gave me are still working full steam."
Iroa nodded sagely. "I too know what it's like to recover from a debilitating injury – from being young and foolish, but that's an entirely different story." He now looked at Nya. "Is C-Sec doing anything about this? They can't be pleased that one of their own was attacked so blatantly, I'm sure."
Nya's hands twisted themselves into a knot. "They're beginning to crack down a lot more heavily on suspected cultist residences. They've offered me an extended leave with pay… but I don't know if I want to take it. I guess that I just want to be left alone for a while and be with Sam while he recovers."
"Yes," Iroa said. "And that's the right thing to do. Friends and family are the most important things we have, especially during these times. And actually, Sam, I've heard tell that you were to plan a trip to Rannoch with Nya, from what she told me. A vacation certainly would be a good distraction from what you two have gone through."
"That was the plan," I sighed. "Not sure when we'll get a chance to go now, but it's certainly set in the future. Have you ever been?"
"I just came back from Rannoch," Iroa said proudly. "I've been stationed there for the past year. I do hope you get to see it – the homeworld is certainly a sight to behold. Perhaps not as much for you humans but for quarians it's almost a religious experience being on the same soil once again that your Ancestors walked upon. It's a remarkable place."
Nya bobbed her head excitedly. "Iroa was just telling me about this place that sounded so cool to visit. It was about this canyon with a natural spring of fresh underground water – and the greenest vegetation on the planet that he's seen. It's something that we have to check out! It's called the… what was it called again, Iroa?"
"The Dimeran Canyon," Iroa offered. "Certainly the most magnificent site I've seen on the homeworld thus far."
"Yes, the Dimeran Canyon! We're going to have to put that on the itinerary."
I smiled fondly as talk of the vacation helped to dispel some of the agonizing thoughts from lying in a hospital bed. "I can't wait to see it once I get out of here and get better."
Iroa walked forward and placed a firm hand on top of mine, giving it a thoughtful pat. "You probably already are aware of this, but you're lucky to know someone that cares about you in your life. I certainly know the feeling."
"Not lucky enough to stay out of the hospital," I gave a painful smirk, "but certainly lucky enough to run into the right people throughout my life."
"Eh'van shallus," Iroa whispered reverently.
Lost, I looked at Nya for help.
"It's an traditional saying among quarians, Sam," she explained. "It roughly means, 'Through eternity, our Paths unite.'"
"Ah, so it's kind of like an 'Amen,' or something like that. But what does the 'Path' mean, specifically?"
"The Path refers to the entirety of our life's course, I would say. It's a metaphor for outlining our journey and how we change as people as we grow. And our growth is represented by us walking down our Path, which intersects several times along the way with other people's Paths – symbolizing our interactions with others and how they impact us."
"Like if you were to marry someone," Iroa interjected, causing Nya and I to share an inconspicuous glance, "two Paths would converge to create one instead of simply intersecting and the two of you would now be walking together instead of alone. It's an idea that we still cling to but it holds little clout amongst our people these days. I'm afraid that whatever blessings we still carry out in service today are only fragments of how our culture used to blossom in its heyday. We were vibrant and multifaceted beings back then."
"I'm hoping that things can return to that state," Nya said to Iroa. "If we could reclaim back our homeworld, what is preventing us from being an influential culture again?"
Iroa shifted back and forth on his feet. "To be respected and admired once more. Wouldn't that be something?"
Before Iroa could continue in his reverie, the doors parted and an asari in doctor's garb swiftly and elegantly entered, her eyes hardened from experience. She made a wide orbit around my bed so that she could stand within a few feet from where I was laying before she opened up her omni-tool to search for what I presumed was my medical records.
She did not immediately address me, but it was only until she had taken stock of the individuals within the room did the asari turn to me and smile kindly. "Are these nice people your family, Mr. McLeod?"
"I'm not," Iroa offered before I had a chance to open my mouth. "I was just departing, actually."
Nya gave a slight lurch, like she was surprised at how quickly the man had decided to up and go just like that. "Are you sure? We can-,"
The elder quarian waved a hand and shook his head. "No, it's probably best that I leave before I sit in on matters too private. I've intruded enough as it is."
"In any case," Nya said as she stepped forward to take Iroa's hands, "I know it wasn't much, but thank you for your support – and for the suggestions. It was nice of you to be here."
Iroa eyed Nya carefully. "I do hope that we will meet again, Nyareth. And you, Sam, I also hope that you make a speedy recovery."
I gave a somber look, mouth thinning into a line. "You and me both, Iroa. Thank you for stopping by."
The man gave a final, respectful, nod of his head that was intended for the both of us, before he walked out of the room without a second glance back. A rather interesting individual, that one. I did indeed wonder if I would see him again.
Meanwhile, the asari doctor flipped through some folders on her omni-tool before she gestured to Nya. "Will you be staying, miss…?"
"McLeod," Nya answered with a hint of pride. "I'm this man's wife."
To her credit, the asari did not even bat an eye. She just reached around and slid a chair forward from the side of the room. "Please, have a seat, Mrs. McLeod."
"Thank you," Nya said as she took the offered chair.
The asari claimed another chair for herself and sat down on the opposite site, giving me a sympathetic look the entire time. "I'm Dr. Naetha, the surgeon who operated on you a few hours ago. The staff alerted me that you could speak a little more clearly now that you've been conscious for a bit. How are you doing, Sam? Or Doctor McLeod? Which would you prefer me to call you?"
"Sam, please," I said. "And I'm doing as well as can be expected. Throat's a little rough and my eyes burn but otherwise I'm all right."
Dr. Naetha's smile cooled into a sad line. "I know, Sam. That's all a direct effect from the chemicals that you were exposed to from the gas grenade. The antibiotics are working to counteract the irritants and they should dissipate within two weeks at the maximum. You nearly died from your prolonged contact to whatever fillers were in that grenade, which from what we could tell from neck swabs, was a combination of DM and CS gases in such high concentrates that, considering how much you inhaled, you're really lucky to be alive."
"CS gas?" Nya asked. "What is that?"
"Its official name is 2-chlorobenzalmalnonoitrile and it-,"
"Bless you," I muttered.
"…and it is a human invention that was developed a couple centuries ago to be used primarily for riot control. It's specifically designed to cause the eyes to burn and tear up, which is why you've been affected with these symptoms, Sam."
"Now I kind of feel guilty," Nya hung her head. "I made it out fine because my mask automatically filters out any toxins."
I held out a hand, palm up, for her to take. Nya grabbed at my hand almost immediately after it had been offered. "There was no way for you to know what would happen," I said, nearly having to cough as my throat tickled slightly. "I don't ever want you to blame yourself for this."
"Still, if I had captured that crook in the beginning-,"
"Nya," I said louder this time, finally resulting in me having to take a singular cough filled with pain. "Nya… enough. No one is blaming you. This is not your fault. If it's anyone's fault it's that bastard who did this to me. What's become of him anyway?"
Dr. Naetha gave a grim look. "Unfortunately… or perhaps fortunately from your perspective, the suspect died en route to the hospital. Whatever dose you received from the grenade, he got worse. His windpipe closed up so fast that we could not find a way to save him before he suffocated. The same thing would have happened to you if we hadn't performed a tracheotomy and rerouted the air through that. Suffice to say, that little hole in your neck is the reason you're still alive right now."
I unconsciously rubbed around the little vent, unease gripping me all the way down to my toes. "No kidding," I whispered hoarsely.
"The hole in your neck will be healed shortly from skin grafts; it's just that we want to keep the site open for a day or two more in case you begin to exhibit any complications from your surgery."
"And what exactly are the details of the surgery?"
"Phonosurgery – we tried repositioning your vocal cords, but the gas was so potent that it ate away at a lot of your cords. We had to install synthetic alternatives to replace the amount of tissue that was lost which is why your voice might sound a little artificial from time to time. You're going to have to be careful – the inner wall of your esophagus as well as your lungs were heavily damaged. Your respiratory system had to be vacuumed while you were out to get all the discharged fluid from your lungs. You're going to exhibit internal scarring and a weakened throat from now on."
Nya's head drooped in response to the news and I ground my teeth bitterly. "Am I going to have to make some lifestyle adjustments to avoid making my injuries worse?" I asked Dr. Naetha.
"Yes, that is the unfortunate part. I have to warn you, Sam, that you're going to be a lot more susceptible to injury now that the inner walls of your throated have been severely weakened from the resulting damage. If you raise your voice above a certain volume or even cough in the wrong manner, you could risk easily tearing open the walls of your throat, which could cause large amounts of internal bleeding. You might be coughing up blood for the first month – and you will need to treat it immediately to prevent yourself from losing too much blood. For that matter, you should probably steer away from acidic foods for a while because they will also serve to eat away at your throat. I probably should also mention this since we're on the subject… you're going to have to avoid oral sex for a few weeks, at least until your throat has healed to a certain point."
It felt like a brick wall had careened into my body and I sagged helplessly into the bed. Now I was suddenly so vulnerable, easily damaged. Reversal of fortunes in yet one of the million ironic twists that had permeated the mangled journey of my life.
"What are my options?" I asked morosely.
Dr. Naetha consulted her omni-tool. "We're going to issue you an inhaler for medi-gel in an aerosol form. You should do well to use it twice daily or whenever you start coughing up blood. It will help against the worst of the pain and will prevent any infections from occurring." The asari then gestured for Nya to scoot closer to me, to which she complied. "But the best treatment that I can recommend is something you already have: companionship. Believe me, recovering from this sort of injury is so mentally taxing that it just drains people day after day. The patients that have someone to look after them – your wife, for instance – fare so much better because they feel like they are genuinely cared about. It gives them purpose, a goal. The ones who are within close proximity to their loved ones have been proven to be less depressed in the long run."
I had to give a sad smirk at that. If anyone knew anything about being depressed, it was this guy right here. Me. Once the epitome of despondent, I had practically hit rock bottom before during the multiple times that I had tried to commit suicide. This bit of history was still an unknown to the people around me, even Nya to a certain extent, and that was a bit of my past that I was going to take to my grave without a second thought.
The notion that I could possibly sink back to that level never registered on my mind. I had no reason to tear myself apart over this. This wound – all that had just happened – was painful, but I've been through worse things before. I could handle this, but the doctor was right, it was going to be hard.
Thank god I would not be alone this time.
As Dr. Naetha continued to go into additional detail about my injuries, I gradually began to lose focus, staring intently at some random spot on the wall where my gaze had decided to rest. Barely listening, I gave half-hearted nods at the intervals when I heard silence, the only reflex action that I could accomplish at this point.
Nya's hands came to rest upon my shoulders delicately, keeping me afloat in the storm. As my hand reach up to touch hers, I could not help but wonder that if all this – my injuries – were some kind of payback for me surviving this long in this foreign universe. Despite the fact that I've been here a while, I was still an anomaly – and the universe is constantly attempting to rectify its anomalies. Was I just a victim of the grand equation trying to balance itself out through eliminating me from my existence in this universe?
I was thinking theoretically now and that meant that I was never going to reach a clear answer that would satisfy me. Yet that also meant that I would never feel fully healed, either.
Maybe I am meant to always stay broken.
A/N: All fluffy things must come to an end (at least, that's how I think the quote goes...)
Told you that the grit was on its way. I've got an evil reputation to keep up here. We're going to see more of Sam's despondency in the next chapter, but things will take a pivot soon after. I've still got more characters to introduce and flesh out - including one that I'm particularly eager to write about.
Let me know what you think!
Sam/Cultist Fight: "Bullet Train" by Marco Beltrami from the film The Wolverine. (I'm a fan of the dissonant wailing of the horns - a good representation for chaos in the moment)
Underwater Dream: "Watertank" by Junkie XL from the film Divergent. (Terrible movie, but the score is a guilty pleasure.)