It's Peter Gabriel's turn for an apology...
"I still don't see what was so bad about what you did."
She stirred some kind of sweetener into her coffee and looked at him over a towering plate of "Belgian waffle."
"I took lives slowly, Siha. With pleasure, I watched them scream as Irikah's broken body tormented my mind, every last inch of her wounded flesh marked forever in my memory. Perhaps I've atoned in helping Kolyat, but…"
"But, nothing. Those deaths are more than just understandable, they were justified in this damned galaxy where the Council did nothing to stop it from happening."
"There is no justification for choosing to kill or choosing to torture. Not deliberately, and not of one's own volition."
"Really? Then what the hell are we doing out here knocking over merc bases when the mission is simply to kill the Collectors?"
"I am your arm, Siha. You're the one who should answer that question."
"I can answer it just fine. What I want to know is why you're generally ok with it, when you weren't with killing those men. Who deserved it, I might add."
"And what is your answer?"
"We need the credits. We need practice fighting together as a team so the Collectors won't clean our clocks. Shitty reasons, but pretty much the same reasons anyone joins a merc band."
"You send us into danger as an exercise?"
"Nothing we can't handle. I'll give the Illusive Man credit for putting together a pretty damned good team without much of my input. Besides, sometimes some good comes out of it. Like those refinery workers on Zorya…"
"The cost was too high, Siha. For my soul, for Kolyat… Irikah should never have suffered for my actions. The sin was mine, and mine alone. I destroyed Kolyat's life seeking 'justice' for Irikah, and I let myself lose control, lose my training, and lose everything that Irikah taught me."
"You didn't destroy Kolyat. He's hurting, but he'll recover."
"Despite my actions."
She sighed deep and long.
"You saved Kolyat, Siha."
"Me? Please. All I did was punch him. Poor kid…"
"Your action seemed a little rash, but it was not one I would have thought to perform, even if it was successful."
"You saved him. Not me. I just saved that racist son of a bitch. I'm regretting that now."
"And Kolyat from prison."
"Give Bailey credit for that. I just did a little winking and nodding. You know."
"And you think I could have 'winked and nodded' quite so successfully? A man who can resist that wink is not a man who enjoys women."
"Now I understand why you wanted my help: my irresistible wink of doom."
"Siha, do you think Kolyat would have allowed me to 'save' him if you hadn't been there?"
"I don't know. I'm just glad it worked out."
"Why do you consider those deaths justified, Siha? Especially when you know the cost to Kolyat, to me…"
"How can't I? How many hanar will live free because you killed those bastards? How many human colony raids did you prevent? How many other Irikahs did you save? Or husbands you spared from grief? Maybe you could have given them cleaner deaths, or enjoyed killing them less, but it doesn't change the fact that you saved lives."
"And destroyed others. What makes one life more worthy than another?"
"Your actions. Simple. They were slavers. People who thrive and profit on the misery of others. Some scum doesn't deserve life."
"Three of those I killed were human, Siha. That alone does not trouble you?"
"Fuck them."
He shook his head.
"I mean it. We should know better. My people fought wars to stop slavery. We outlawed indenture hundreds of years ago. We learned the hard way that some things are worse than mere death or torture. You fought to stop that kind of evil, and you should take pride in the lives you saved."
"You claim I should be proud of what I have done, when my absence hurt Irikah, and eventually killed her? Or that my vengeance nearly forced my son to my path? That I nearly became what Irikah taught me to despise?"
"I don't think you should have spent a decade suffering for it. I know you're not going to hear this, but I have to say it anyway. Every action has more than one way of looking at it, and more than one consequence. Your actions may have hurt you and Kolyat, but they helped countless others. You may not appreciate that, but I do. Thank you, on behalf of the people you saved. For people like my parents who died fighting in slaver raids. For the battered and broken the Alliance only barely managed to save. For those taken and chipped and tortured. For those the slavers 'rejected' and killed. For Talitha. For me."
"Talitha?"
"A young girl taken and enslaved from the colony I grew up in. She was six when the batarians chipped her, and she was rescued a decade later by the Alliance. I had to talk her down from killing herself… Poor thing. She's getting counseling now and the education she missed out on when she was penned and tortured like an animal. You probably saved a lot of children from that fate, even if you can't see it."
"How do you see me, Siha? What I see is a sinner."
"Someone who loved with all his heart, and who suffered for the decision others made for him before he was even old enough to decide anything on his own. Someone who was willing to sacrifice everything he had and everything he was for that love. Someone, who, despite every handicap fate forced on him, still saved countless lives, no matter how it hurt him to do it, and how much he had to sacrifice. I see a man who insults himself, tortures himself, and hates himself for acts that brought light to the galaxy."
He stared at her, his eyelids aflutter. No, I can't hear this, Siha. Not from you, from the woman whose father wounded her, and who, despite that, brought me light and life. I can't accept your truth.
"Poetry, Siha?"
"Is that what it is? It's the truth."
"Hm."
"So what does 'Siha' mean, anyway?"
"Someday I'll tell you."
"Not that again! You're a damned tease, you know that?"
"A little mystery to unravel has never hurt a woman."
She stuck her tongue out between delicious pursed lips and made the strangest blatting noise he'd ever heard. A new form of human communication? He raised an eyebrow as she gathered up both empty plates and cups, but she just shook her head.
"What does that mean, Siha?"
"You'll find out when you tell me what 'Siha' means."
He waited to summon EDI until he was sure she'd left in the elevator.
"EDI, could you please tell me what Shepard's last gesture meant?"
When the AI finished speaking, he couldn't keep his laughter back.
