The cafe, as it turned out, was a hidden away little spot with full-wall screens and filled with sweet sugar and pastry smells accompanied by earthy roasting Earth coffee and more bitter Palaven stum. Quintus and Tri'im huddled together in a corner booth facing the door, the former sipping his drink while the latter picked the crust off a slice of kupri loaf, catching a baked-in glob of fruit on her teeth to pull it apart with her tongue.
"I'm-" He cleared his throat. "I'm sorry about...that. Couple nights ago."
"You're fine. I should have said something, or told my mother not to be right at the door when you came by. Heh. Maybe nuked the nearest Reaper for extra security."
His hand, slightly shaking and a bit too cool, touched the top of hers, fingers lacing together. Both held back from sharing beyond the faintest trickle of each others' presence. "It's all right."
They shifted closer together, until her shoulder covered his and if they lolled their heads too far they bumped together. She felt the steady pattern of his heartbeat against her arm, comforted knowing it wasn't racing, erratic, betraying something he didn't share.
"So, ah, how's your volunteering going?"
She kept a straight face while picking snippets to share. He need not worry about the strikes, that was certain. She shrugged, turning her palms up for a quick second. "You heard about the raloi diplomat coming here?"
He paused to give her a quizzical look before slipping back into a constant examination of the room. "A bit. You know, I kind of... understand why they hid from the Reapers. They were like galactic babies or something." He squinted, teeth clacking together. "Or something. But, ah, what about them?"
"Some kid of theirs showed up- actually, day after the whole mata incident thing- and Therus stuck 'em with Jona and me." She rolled her eyes. "It's just- they're so naive. All 'ooh, hey, there's some poor kids, let's make them happy and of course they'll cooperate and be darlings!'" With a sigh, she pulled off a corner of her kupri loaf slice, running her thumb along its rough outside before eating it. "Ah, it's nothing. The children love 'em. They and Jona had a blast teaching physics."
Quintus's mandibles flared. "Pun intended?"
She snorted and gave him a light shove, the two laughing to themselves.
"Okay. Now that that's out of the way, what have you been up to?" She nudged him again, but he was looking elsewhere. She followed his gaze to a pair of human women who could have been identical twins had one not looked nineteen and the other thirty-something. The elder had a dangerous, wary edge to her, head held high but turning to view the whole cafe. Her eyes met the turians', lingering until the younger asked something.
Quintus broke his focus on the woman's back first. "Sorry, Tri'im. What?"
"Huh?"
They stared at each other for a few long seconds, immobile. Then Quintus shook his head and said, "Right. Uh, stuff. The...the flowers I've got started blooming."
She pressed into his side, hooking her leg around his. "I'll have to make my way to your place sometime, then. Which is that really early one? With the white petals?"
"The jasmine? I, ah..." He suddenly found great interest in the lines on the table. "I had to cut it," he mumbled.
"Oh." She rested her head on her knuckles, watching a couple more humans sit down with the almost-twins across the way and whisper to each other, giving furtive glances towards the other tables. "How are the rest, then?"
"Great! I got some more annuals transferred yesterday and-" He caught himself to examine her blank, somewhat lost expression. "...Pretty much there's more flowers."
Tri'im apologized and the two chatted on, first about flowers then Quintus's prospective new job at the police station sifting through data. She offered to see if she could get a good word in with the police chief, until he said that the person she knew as chief wasn't there any more.
"Really? I'd thought he'd never retire."
Quintus shrugged. "I don't know. I think I remember seeing his name on the precinct's memorial board, though."
"He was the first one to come by when we first moved here." The memory took a little digging to recall in detail, but she remembered the pleasant surprise the visitor had brought to her- only ten at the time- and her parents. They were new to the Citadel, and Tri'im was still in a foul mood from it all which made everything that much worse. He had only stayed for a short time, but it put her parents at ease, which trickled down to her. "Good guy."
They finished their food with little more to be said. After deeming the place "nice, yeah" and making vague plans to meet up again sometime (Tri'im really wanted to go see the flowers, jasmine or no) they parted ways.
It would have gone faster had Tri'im not ran into the guy who'd sat with the almost-twins. They swapped apologies, and she noticed he had a nice brogue of an accent.
But she let the encounter fade from her mind.