Chapter 8: Wake Up Call

November 6th, 2185

*BEEP* *BEEP* *BEEP*

I cracked my eyes at the damned alarm clock… 4:05am. Why was it going off so early? My hand instinctively reached for the snooze but the noise continued.

*BEEP* *BEEP* *BEEP*

The moment I sat up, all the blood rushed to my head and instantly began to throb.

*BEEP* *BEEP* *BEEP*

What the hell? Where is that noise coming from?

"Captain."

"What is it CAIT?" I grumbled at the AI.

"Your brother is calling."

"Ah, that explains it. Thank you."

"Logging you out."

I got up and stumbled to my chair. The beeping pounded against my head, hitting me like a brick. The throbbing was a painful reminder of the events that transpired.

With a push of a button on the hologram keyboard, my brother showed up on the screen. "You are calling me awfully early Qwen," grumbling at him.

"I know but I needed to follow up on the message you sent me. By the way, you look like shit."

"Gee, thanks. Good morning to you too."

"What the hell happened?"

I questioned how much I should tell him, only revealing, "I had a quarrel with Lyrik."

"Looks like he won."

"You could say that."

"I hope he looks as bruised up as you do."

"Probably not, you know how thick skinned turians are."

"What were you fighting about?"

"Mostly about the info I sent you."

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"Not really…," I looked away, "How about you just tell me why you are calling?"

"About the info you sent me. Right now I'm not finding anything about this Jack person. You couldn't find a last name?"

"Nope, that's all I got. I don't even know if that is her real name or an alias. Even Purgatory only had her listed as Jack."

"What makes you think she is the one?"

"I had the dream again and this time she was the one I was fighting."

"Are you going to base everything on that dream?"

I fought every urge to tell him about the differences. Especially mentioning Lyrik's confession… I don't think he's ready to hear about his big sister being in an interspecies relationship. So I stayed with the basics, "Well, everything lines up. She's a biotic, she confirmed being in Terra Nova the summer of the attack, she even matches the description I found in the reports at the Arcturus Station."

Qwen sat there silently, registering all the information I provided him. "It does poise a problem that she's working under Commander Shepard. She's pretty much untouchable right now."

"Trust me… I know… it's all I have been thinking about."

It's not the only thing…

"Listen, I need to get ready to report in. I'll continue to check around and see if I can pull up anything more. Maybe there is a way we can lure her away from the safety of Commander Shepard. Until then, behave yourself. And please… rest up."

"I'll try but I won't promise anything."

The screen went dark and the room went back to being silent. Finally, my head could stop throbbing. I shot a glance at my bed and noticed how comfortable it was looking. I stumbled towards it and crawled back under the sheets, feeling the pain being reawakened from my recent movements.

I took a glance at the alarm clock on my bedside table. Knowing that I would have difficulty in getting to my post in two hours, I decided to excuse myself from my duties. I'm pretty sure the crew would understand.

"CAIT."

"Yes Captain."

"When everyone gets to their posts, can you please advise them that I will be unavailable until 900 hours?"

"Understood Captain. Logging you out."

Yeah, 5 more hours of rest should do it.

I turned to my side and stared at the empty spot on my bed. Taking my spare pillow, I brought it to my chest and clenched it tightly against me. I closed my eyes and allowed my thoughts to run rampantly again.

Instead of dwelling on the dream… my mind was filled with the images of my quarrel with Lyrik. Playing out the scenes of our kiss like a movie scene stuck on repeat. The way his mouth felt against mine, the primitive desires flowing in my veins encouraging me to continue. There was something different between us, something I never felt before with anyone. I was longing for more and I couldn't explain it.

I still had so much to consider. I didn't know if I wanted to claim myself as being in a relationship, especially in an interspecies one. I know I accepted Lyrik's offer but I was unsure if it was really what I wanted. The only thing I did know is that I would do anything just to have one more kiss.

Four hours later I was awakened by the feeling of someone sitting on the side of my bed. I groggily looked at the intruder, seeing the back of a red and silver suit. "Hal?"

"I'm sorry for disturbing you, Xora."

"Don't worry about it. I should start getting up anyway. What's up?" I asked as I sat up, the throbbing returned but it wasn't as severe as earlier. I propped my pillows up to the backboard and leaned against them.

Hal turned to face me but didn't look directly at me. He was fumbling with his hands, fidgeting with the straps on his arms. "There is no easy way to say this… but I know what happened yesterday."

Wait, what? Please tell me I'm still sleeping. That I'm dreaming.

"Okay. What do you know?"

"Everything... The argument, the quarrel, the… um… yeah…" he muttered through his translator.

Fuck.

"How did you find out?"

"I spend all day working in the engine room adjacent to the cargo hold. When I heard yelling, I peeked through the door to see what was going on."

"Well, this is awkward," I said scratching my head and looking away.

"Don't worry. I'm not going to say anything to anyone. My lips are sealed, figuratively speaking. If it were anyone else on the crew, I would turn a blind eye but I just wanted to stop by and check on you. Make sure you were feeling alright."

"I'll be fine. I do appreciate you looking out for me."

"Out of curiosity and I know I shouldn't be asking this… but what is going to happen between you and Lyrik? I remember you distinctly stating you were against interspecies relationships."

"Call it ironic, I guess," I snorted, "To tell you the truth, I honestly don't know what's going to happen. I'm still trying to wrap my mind around the whole situation. But the ball has been set in motion so I guess we'll just have to wait and see."

"I wish I knew… or had the chance…" Hal muttered, whispering things under his breath.

I leaned forward, trying to understand what he was saying, "What?"

"Never mind... I won't interfere with what goes on between the two of you but I do have one request. Please keep the brawling to a minimum. I don't know if it's common for your species to quarrel but you took quite a beating. You had me concerned."

"I'm part Irish… we have a habit of challenging others," I tried to joke but it went right over his head. He obviously didn't know much about humans. So I reassured him, "You can trust me, I have no intentions of doing any sort of fighting any time soon."

"Good. Because I noticed some red blood stains around the ship and that is extremely unsanitary. Especially since you like to tread around barefoot… which I will suggest you stop doing too. You could easily catch a virus. So I took the authority of sterilizing the cargo bay, the hallways, and even your bathroom."

I shot him a disgusted look, "You were cleaning in my quarters while I was sleeping?"

"I had to. Otherwise you would have never let me. And you know how I am with germs."

Congratulations Hal. You just went up a touch on my weird-o-meter.

"I also have access to some antibiotics that could help speed up the process of healing."

"Actually," I shook off his weird obsession with sanitation, "that would be great. The sooner these heal, the sooner I won't get mocked by my darling brother."

"And if you need more time to recuperate today, let me know and I can cover some of your duties. Just… take care of your injuries."

"Thank you Hal, I will."

"I…," he leaned over and wrapped his arms around me, "I would hate to lose you. You're the only friend I have ever known." He gave me a small squeeze, rubbing his cold visor against the side of my head.

After the initial shock of my mechanic hugging me wore off, I hesitantly put my hands on his back. I was confounded that he was even touching me. Come to think of it, I have never seen him touch anyone before. He's too much of a mysophone, afraid of every kind of germ out there even though he was confined to his enviro-suit. Even more surprising was how he hardly reacted to the mixture of blood and medi-gel seeping through the back of my shirt.

When he pulled away, I was expecting him to freak out any moment, especially since I could see some of my residue on his suit… but he didn't. He stood up and started backing away, "I'm going to go. If you need me, for anything at all, I'll be in the engine room."

"Okay, Hal," I nodded, watching him retreat towards the door.

As soon as I was comfortably hidden under the sheets, I heard my door creek open again. I figured it was either Hal bringing me the antibiotics he spoke of or Lyrik coming in to further discuss where we stood. But I was wrong… horribly wrong…

"Why didn't you tell me?" Josie cried out.

Oh no… please don't tell me you somehow know about the whole ordeal between Lyrik and I. Damn! How in the hell does she know? Wait… maybe I'll just act stupid.

I pulled away the blanket covering my head and looked directly at her, "What are you talking about?"

"Why didn't you tell me Qwentin called?"

Phew! She doesn't know! She just cares about my brother calling… wait… of all the times she could bug me she has to do it now? Oh, she's going to pay…

"I was checking the call log just now and noticed his number… Did he say anything about me?"

I rolled my eyes, "Are you SERIOUSLY asking me this, Josie?"

"Yes. I want to know if he mentioned me."

"No!" I sat up furiously, "Now leave me alone."

"Are you sure? He might have dropped some hint about me or maybe you were too groggy to tell since he did call pretty early. What did you two talk about?"

"Josie, please," I begged her, "Leave me alone… I'm exhausted."

"But…"

"I can assure you that we didn't talk about you. We only discussed business matters."

"But…"

Before she could ask another idiotic question, I threw one of my pillows at her and screamed, "OUT!"

Josie jumped aside then began taking a few steps towards the door, "Fine… I can see you're not in the mood to talk. I'll be back later."

"ARGH!" I screamed as soon as she left, falling back on my pillows. "CAIT?"

"Yes, Captain?"

"Do you have a program to get people to leave me alone?"

"No… I can prevent viral bugs from penetrating my system but I do not have any programs to keeps pests from interrupting you."

I giggled, "Pests… good one, CAIT."

"Logging you out."

Using my remaining pillow, I covered my head and slunk back into the comfort of my blankets. I had to wait until my heartbeat slowed down before I could close my eyes and drift into slumber. Thankfully, no one else entered…