Time flew by with Jane in her fugue state of what the fuck, committed to meeting with Thane professionally and setting aside personal issues, not giving Garrus anything in the way of substantive understanding of why she and Thane had to speak alone and unheard.
Garrus was not stupid, and of course this could not help but put him in mind of more insidious conspiracy possibilities, Jane still indoctrinated, Thane now indoctrinated, through some other method, hiding from EDI and Garrus and planning doom.
Doom again.
Despite her diving on Garrus…accurately…like a grenade…she still was nowhere near ready for anything approaching sex.
She was only approaching being able to want to be okay with it to assure herself she was fine, and that was not the same at all.
And of course the next question was…had she ever been fine?
Define fine.
Once again, miraculously, Garrus understood. His restraint was greater than hers, because he had control of himself and she did not have control over her impulses and choices…yet…but it was possible. She had done it before. Back then it had been done out of necessity and even defiance, to avoid detection, but the flames and blood and screams had faded and she had become as she had been, as she remembered. She had resumed the relationships she had, with no break, no change in her habits, only a willingness to remain beat up for a bit, have that be a reason for distance. She had used the excuse of being under fire for her stupid AWOL stunt and that she needed to work hard and not fuck up.
Sex and intimacy were needs for her, and she was connected enough to know that. To attempt to do without them would be a new type of starvation on top of Corbin winning, taking away something she needed by poisoning it.
This wasn't just sex, though, it was the experience of being helpless, of having her mind taken from her. It was not that she did not trust, it was anticipating what would happen to her when she felt that loss of control.
So the question hung there…maybe she could have intimacy but not sex. Maybe she could have sex…but not with a Turian. She wasn't afraid of killing him anymore, but she was afraid that the combination of Reverie and hard plate, the overwhelming power he had over her, his tendency toward the feral and violent, welcome before, would now be intolerable.
…plus indoctrination risk.
That was who she was now, and that was who he was, and she could see both of them…suffering quietly…him holding back his nature, her tolerating it…and she understood why Garrus was warm, gentle and not even seeming to make an effort to 'understand' in any way. This was the way it was.
The impulsive insanity of jumping on him in retrospect made her wonder if she would have barreled forward if he had not stopped her, admitted no dissenting voice, dismissed his concerns and claimed impulsivity as strength.
Define strength.
Face it, it sounded exactly like her. She'd died and then gotten right back in the game with no hesitation. There was some internal mocking voice, probably an echo of Targ 'The great Commander Shepard. Can't handle a hug from a Turian.' An echo of her parents, every drill instructor, every mission, everything she'd told her own troops. She was better than that, tougher than that, and that's what she'd always told herself, and that's what had always been ultimately true. No excuses. Suck it up and play hurt.
She supposed the fact that she even recognized an internal voice as possibly destructive was progress. Ugly progress, but progress.
She still needed the eggs.
Targ may not be the pinnacle of sensitivity training, but he did represent the cruelty of the fact that the Universe did not give a damn what she was going through, and some assholes would get a kick out of it if they could see it. He was the essence of what she was fighting. The Reapers were not going to take a knee to give her time to sort through her feelings and face them at full actualized strength.
We go to war with the psyche we have, not the psyche we want.
Her sex life was going to have to take a back seat to saving the galaxy. Possibly not the most self-actualizing choice, but she had to set priorities.
She had asked for and received an alarm on her Omni Tool that woke her if she was having a nightmare that resulted in any vocalization. Kasumi, Karin and Garrus had invented it for her. It went off…a lot. Garrus was able to spend time with her. He was able to sleep near, her fingers learning that twining was okay, that a hand on her clothed hip was comforting and not confining, that she loved his hum and his voice and his warmth.
He did not make her ecstatic, but he could make her happy, he could make her laugh, the weight could fall away in his presence, as his voice carried her along, as his smile and eyes made her forget other burdens.
He read to her, talked to her, and she leaned in, but he did not lean back and only reached out occasionally, gently and with limits. He was not testing her boundaries at all, and that gave her a false sense of having none, which she realized was foolish, just as he had. What he was doing was being a friend and a loved one, if not a lover, as though she were in a hospital bed or a psych ward, helping her from breath to breath, not setting goals or trying to reach a place, just being there for her. They could focus on the things that were measurable, muscle strength, rifle accuracy, calories, dreams and sleep, and the rest would have to wait.
Her instinct was not to reach for him when she woke, but to look and see he was there, possibility if not probability. His near presence was calming and she was not precisely alone, but also not crowded to explain, not forced to confront. She didn't have to wake to the finality of having pushed him away, to a permanently empty place.
A part of her pushed her to cut him loose for his own sake, that he deserved better and he should find better…but his voice truly was inside her head, no longer indoctrinated, just back to who he was, and she knew he would not agree with her, and she tried out respecting his wishes as a concept.
Trying to figure out his motivations and mindset, because that's what her brain did, she thought that her issue, as he'd determined, was not the pain, which she could bear, or the fear, which she could manage, but the numbness, coldness, emotional, physical and mental that was insidious and that she did not know how to measure or counteract. She would prefer to push through and conquer. He would like to see the extent of that numbness, determine if it had always been there, would it always be there. If it had been, would he be touching where she could not feel and was he validating her ability to seem fine, ignore it? He was making the assumption of numbness, not testing her. Faced with that she wondered how much of a lifetime of habit she could overcome, counteract, how much honesty she was capable of providing, that he knew if he asked her "Can you feel that?" she would find it near impossible to answer honestly. She would have some internal surge that convinced her of the rightness of saying "Of course I feel that…that's my arm...that's my head…that's my heart…"
He could not trust her answers because she could not trust her own answers. So he didn't ask.
Sometimes she watched him sleep, her eyes traveling along his colors and edges, her mind at rest until she slipped back into sleep herself. Sometimes she thought at him, about him, an easier subject than others, another service his presence provided with his immediacy protecting her from other possibilities.
I am so sorry, Garrus. I am convinced that for you to know the truth I would have to infect you with what I have, and I can't do that. Thane has been in this pressured, dark magma, and all we have for you is cold stone and jagged edges and it would still not be enough. You would think you understood and that would be a disservice to everyone. I've told you so many times how much it means to me that you understand without being told and I am hoping…that you know it is true.
You won't let me go near apologizing without threatening to hit me again.
I love you so much.
Garrus also wasn't taking chances on her security and she was cooperative, didn't argue when he informed her she wouldn't be running around Illium on her own, that his order now and strenuous recommendation for her future command if it came to that was to always travel with a team, armed and armored. He volunteered for each and every future potential outing and if she considered that an inconvenience too fucking bad. This was where he would insist on them both being inconvenienced. As much as she would love to protest and say she could take care of herself, she did not want to see Garrus's face in response. If she was taken again because of her inability to learn, he'd be within his rights to kill her himself. So she gave up shopping and autonomy. So that's what being her was like now. She stayed for a visit with Liara while Garrus spoke to Thane, brought him to the Normandy and had him scanned.
Liara would have lent them her office, she kept the space but no longer used it for business, or not exactly. It was still a permanent address where she could be contacted. She had a relay service, no longer an assistant. Hiring someone after Nyxeris seemed to be either asking for a setup, or putting an innocent person in danger of being turned. There were probably more bugs in there than there were at any point on the Normandy. So Liara used it for disinformation only.
Kinda funny, kinda not.
Garrus settled on meeting in a hotel room, thankfully not one she knew. Definitely not the one they had stayed in.
Garrus came to collect her, escort her there, wait somewhere out of hearing range.
Garrus told her "He is not restrained. I convinced him that was silly before the fact, that we chose to meet with the man we knew and not the suspicion of who he could have become. That he could kill us at any time and we know that. That we don't think he will. He seemed relieved and alarmed, which is at this point a shared experience. He seems…himself, but he's in shock and physically, mentally exhausted. Clean scan. He states he has no demands, only offerings and choices. He wants to make sure I know you're safe…which we all know is impossible…but as safe as you can be or can feel when you talk. He hasn't told me anything beyond that, preferring to speak to you before speaking to me. I agreed. That okay?"
She nodded and said "That's okay. Thank you. Can you believe our lives have been weirder?"
He smiled but it faded and he said gravely "Not really. We'll check the weird quotient when this meeting's over." He sighed and said "I'm really hoping it goes down, and not up."
She put a hand on his shoulder and said "Yeah, I remember saying something about sticks and stones and words…and you were right. Words can hurt me, but I'll do my best to duck if it comes to that."
Garrus smiled and said "I'll be right behind you. Talk to you soon." A brief pass of his hand on her cheek, a smile, and he was walking away. She wanted to follow, leaned that way before she walked out of the warm lingering support into lukewarm stale air, into the cold. Thane's presence was enough to start physical tremors in her knees, down her spine, the back of her neck. Danger. Her body and mind were trying to get her to flee, every negative association with "Drell assassin" thrown at her, insisting she was a fool and she was about to die if she did not run. He was seated at a table and it took an act of will to take the seat facing him. He raised his hands…gloved.
He said softly "I will never touch you without your permission. I will remain gloved in your presence. If you wish for either of those things to change, you must tell me explicitly."
She nodded once in acknowledgment. Good. Slight easing of the sense of danger, which she reminded herself should heighten the intellectual sense of danger in a lulled sense, and it did. She was pumping out fear with each heartbeat, trying to keep it under her skin along with her blood.
As he so often had while they spoke, reminiscent of just getting to know him in Life Support, he steepled his gloved hands and looked at her for a moment before he began. He said "I have spent a great deal of time trying to decide where to begin. What I say depends upon whether or not you trust or believe my account of events, whether you can support my judgments or my decisions."
She nodded again.
He said "To relieve a major concern, Yahlis is not here, on Illium, though I know where she is. She is not a threat, she is not a danger. She is in cryogenic storage, similar to the method used on Jack. She will not be rescued or found by another, and she entrusted to me the means and method and location, that I would relay that information to you if you wished it. This method of suspending without resolving the question of her life and death, to defer the choice until you wish to make it was her idea. It seemed…fitting, and I did as she asked. As a Pon-Ifa player, she sees it as being taken off the board as the game continues. She is in the state of haras tal; no place, no role, and she chose for that to be literal, requiring no trust or investment of attention in her continued existence. She said her death belongs to you and that I had no right to grant it, that if I did, you would be displeased. This solution would provide for you being able to end her life yourself or ask her questions you might have if she has been unable to relay the answer through me. I am, in her eyes, mesadi pernaq, roughly translated, the stone that has fallen due to shearing weakness from the apex of a mountain, rolled under its own weight into the depths of the sea, lost, with only a memory of station, far from its nature. Without worth or potential for worth, only counted as a loss and a liability. In her eyes I am nothing but a danger and hindrance to you. I also find that…fitting. Her respect for me does not exist, but her respect for you I do not question."
Jane swallowed and nodded when he paused.
Thane said "Forgive me for the drama of this meeting, but I believed you would understand why I asked for it to be done this way. I do not know if you wish to hear me speak beyond the fact that she is gone, but not dead, that through me her fate rests in your hands. You may do as you choose, flip a remote switch and she would cease to exist."
The relief of that information calmed and steadied her, it probably shouldn't have and it could have been a lie, but the way he spoke of her sounded…plausible, even probable. Authentic. Jane said "Give me your account of what happened from the moment the shuttle door closed until now. If you need information from me to answer that, if you have different versions of the truth depending on my answers, then ask."
Thane nodded and said "Her first words to me were 'You do not have time. Your Siha requires your aid and you must move your hand over the board in the dark, with only me to guide you.' At first I thought she meant to claim herself as Siha, but she meant you. I also missed that she did not say 'we do not have time' or 'I do not have time' but that she was informing me that my time was short. She was correct. Ignorant of circumstances but aware only of immediate threat and an opportunity to gain information, I addressed only the navigation system. She was restrained, but she spoke throughout. She told me that you were now in Garrus's capable hands, that I had made a choice, and she accepted the outcome of her attempt to turn you, knew she had failed, knew she would always fail if she tried again, did not wish to try again, and thus she was unworthy to return to the life, the role she had known. She stated she had prayed that she would fail, and pledged in her prayers that if granted that gift, her will would be yours. If I wished to know what happened during those seven weeks, she would tell me. She would show me. At her base was all the information I required, but if I wished to improve the chances of achieving what the Doyenne required, I must move fast, move in collusion with her, and follow her guidance. She addressed you as nothing but Doyenne throughout our conversations. She told me she needed to send a compliance ping for her mission, and I debated that as truth or trap but allowed it as the only potential I could consider that might buy me time. Failure to send it would invoke investigation immediately. I wished to have the site to myself. I asked her if you were indoctrinated. She said yes. I asked her if she indoctrinated you. She said yes. She told me where to go, and I retrieved that exact information from the navigation system with effort and time. Trusting her would have allowed me more time at that site. I did not trust her. I kept her alive to savor killing her later. A hand that moves against you forfeits its fingers. A mouth that moves against you forfeits its tongue. That was my intention."
Thane looked at Jane closely as she struggled to keep a blank face. He continued "This moment is where I betrayed you, and I knew it. I should have returned to you, but I wanted her information and my vengeance more, and she was giving it to me. That was the beginning of my collusion, the beginning of her influence over me. I allowed her to speak for you. I ultimately believed what she said, though I did not trust. I believed based on the evidence she gave me. I had no faith that what she would give me next would be truth, but each time, had I listened to her, I could have accomplished much more with the time given. That was my dilemma and my choice, that she gave me what I wanted and I took it, greedy for more. Her restraint was also temporary. Had she wished to, she could have killed me or fled several times in ways that I would have been unable to prevent, possibly in the first hours, certainly in the first few days despite my precautions because of mistakes I made, situations I did not anticipate or understand and through me underestimating her. Eventually I left her unrestrained. I had already passed the point of her betrayal many times before it became apparent that she would not take an opportunity to flee or strike. She recognized with contempt my attempts to test her. She outlined several opportunities I had missed, where she could have exploited my failures in security or circumstance, taken advantage of her preparations, traps against base invasion. Had I gone in alone, all information would have been destroyed, likely I would have been killed. She guided me through detection and disarming. Once again, I chose to move forward instead of back with that information."
Jane said softly "She created a need and then fulfilled it."
He nodded "Yes. After seven weeks of facing the probability of having lost you, I was relishing the opportunity to murder any I encountered and she only escaped that wrath due to her usefulness. She directed me to what I was wanted, and in each instance she gave me more than I could have secured for myself, promised more of the same and asked only for the time to relay the information. She said her life was worth nothing, was forfeit to you, and I could make use of her as I should or I could waste that time and that life when it could be in your service. She said her pain was only of value to me and that inflicting it would waste time. She would prefer that you moved her but did not have that luxury. As I was ignorant and did not know your will, she would speak for you, and I must listen or risk loss of the board you needed in your possession."
Jane's mouth quirked into a brittle smile. Sounded like her. An inappropriate surge of 'that's my girl' and the cozy warm knowledge that Yahlis had spent at least a few days outwitting and bossing Thane around aided in the sense of confidence and camaraderie, brave and stupid…with both of them.
Thane continued, and the shock Garrus spoke of was more prominent in his speech. "She led me directly to the information and I wished to know how to reverse whatever she had done to you. I threatened to ask her to describe the use of each medication, that I would test it on her and then test it on myself to confirm. She indicated which ones were which, but that there was only one of importance, and it did not matter if I injected it into her, but she cautioned me against using it on myself. She did not know how to reverse the condition. She had only been instructed in its application and exploitation, not its mechanism. Knowing what it was or how to reverse it was beyond her power, beyond mine if I chose to return, that all I could do would be to watch helplessly, uselessly. She pointed out that you had Garrus and a ship with scientists that had cured me when I could not, could cure you where I could not, or so she hoped. I did not comprehend until later that I was threatening her with my own indoctrination by my own hand. She…urged me…to spare myself that. She informed me I had one use and that I could put that into your service, or serve my helplessness and indecision, return to you with nothing."
Jane said "You believed her."
Thane nodded and dropped his hands to the table. "That is my betrayal. I believed her, and I continued to believe her, testing and challenging and playing with information and technology about which I had no knowledge, and she warned me, protected me from it, explained its use. I did not consider attempting to contact you until she gave me all the information she had, did not betray me ultimately, suggested and submitted to cryogenic suspension. I do not believe she lied to me once. Which of course seems impossible and I must ask you…I do not know, Siha, did I make some move, create some circumstance, am I indoctrinated?"
Jane said drily "No. I think you just met Yahlis."
Thane sat a moment, and she saw he did not know whether or not to believe her. He said quietly "I believed myself likely compromised, that I had fallen to her, that I could not stop, could not choose to fail to take the next move she chose. I began sending confirmation that I was alive, but I would not communicate with you. I would not ask you, ask Garrus, to support my choices based upon the inspiration, to trust or even consider my conclusions. I had no information on how to aid you in reversing indoctrination, only syringes and expectations and the knowledge of how to exploit the results. Yahlis promised me other targets I could acquire. The medications themselves were insignificant to healing you and I could provide that information later, when there was less to be done. She told me what had been done, what she had done, and told me where to find every record proving it, but also told me that time was short, that her confirmations would not hold off investigation for long, and that we needed to leave there and travel to Kahje, that she knew you and I had spoken of ending the Compact, and that my greatest service to you could be in removing all evidence and witness of your capture and providing actionable intelligence on handlers that would no longer exist if she were burned as a contact. I chose acting on that, could not, would not communicate with you, considered myself burned."
Jane said "Well, she gave you what you wanted. You knew by then, by now, that most everything… everything in my head… is in hers."
Thane said with shock, not anger "Yes, I do. She told me, and I have seen. She and I tracked down every virtual copy and mind that might have information about her mission, every mind responsible for sending her on that mission, everything she had forwarded to Kahje, and we ended them. She had not provided comprehensive reports, her mission was not done yet and communication is kept to a minimum during execution, but even that no longer exists. That…is what she offered and I did not believe she would deliver, but I chased regardless. That is what I traded for my place on the Normandy. I did not harm her. I wished to…I wish to…and yet I did not and do not. It remains that I abandoned you to complete an order you did not give me, with a woman who attempted to destroy you. I knew I might lose my opportunity to return the account of your own indoctrination to you. Had I been unable to send those pings, information would have been released to Garrus regarding the medical implications, disclosing also the source of my knowledge, but not the samples. I knew it was possible that Yahlis was leading me to murder targets she chose for her own purposes, that I would die and you would hear no more from me."
He paused, and when he began again there was a familiar stillness in his voice, the mood and tone she recognized in him when he spoke of hard truths, things he could not change and did not understand, could not process, helpless. He said "I did not feel indoctrinated, but I did not know what indoctrination felt like. I chose no contact with the Normandy other than the confirmation that I was alive. I did not wish to lead Yahlis back to you, be the wedge that allowed her back on the ship, back into your presence. I am the only living mind beyond Yahlis's that has the knowledge of what she did. She has urged me…to end my life after I deliver or destroy what I have recovered. She would prefer that you end us both, that our service be our final action, and that we be removed from the board never to be set back down, to fail you again. That is what I offer you, because as she said, I cannot speak for you, I can only provide you with choices. I have made my choices. I have all the medications and the records of dosages and times. I have the delivery method of indoctrination that she used. I had not delivered it because I could not verify or trust that what she said was true, nor could I ask you to make such a choice, to see me, to meet me, to trust in my judgment, to hear me say that I did as she asked, that I did everything and all that she asked. I have enough information to destroy what remains of the Compact, and I shall continue on that path if that is permitted. Agents have been identified, networks mapped, compounds isolated with the means to locate more. So many Hanar have been indoctrinated that much of their security and protocols have been decimated due to their own inability to reason. There are deep and valid reasons to mistrust individual Hanar and Drell based on indoctrination and that can and will be exploited. Children have been rescued and relocated, and more children will be saved if your judgment allows it."
Jane said with a slight smile "So…children remain in bondage if I end your life, huh? Sounds like a bad call."
Thane said with quiet intensity "This I must do on my own, with Feron's assistance. Only Drell can move in this world. I have no allies that could accomplish what I could do myself. He has assisted in building a network, assisting survivors after I have completed each mission. He is effective in spreading the information, the accounts, dispelling the mystery and obligation of the Compact."
Jane said gently "It was a hard call to make, and I'm gratified by the result."
Thane swallowed once and said "Yahlis…urged me to tell you one thing I had withheld, something she would know of me because of our mirrored lives."
Jane said softly "We've been speaking business, Thane. I'm not certain we have gotten to where I can discuss the personal. I am…glad it's only in your head…and I can live with that…you have always guarded my secrets. Now you guard all of my secrets. I failed to guard yours. She knew everything I knew of you before you had met her. She knew of Kolyat. I placed him in direct danger."
Thane shook his head and said forcefully "The Hanar knew of me already, knew of Irikah, knew of Kolyat. I was not their target. Yahlis would not have gone after him on her own. To her I am unworthy of notice. The Hanar did not know of my relationship to you perhaps, and you are worthy of notice, but I was forewarned and he is no longer on the Citadel. You did not speak with malice. She had the information from you, but not what you did with it, not how you used it. That she could not do. She also knew that as well, that the information was unique in your hands, not unique in hers. What you said to Yahlis…was not a betrayal of any part of me. My truths are yours."
She ducked her head and said "All right. My truths are yours. It has been this way, it will be this way. Garrus needs you, I need you. I can't…I can't touch your skin…but I can't accept being severed from you. Yahlis is right about many things because she had the information and the mind to process it, but she is not right that you should end. She is not right that you are… mesadi pernaq…and only you can decide if another truth, one you have already told me would result in pity or disgust…belongs to me or why it would. There she can't speak to me and speaks with her own contempt, which is not what is on my tongue, in my head or in my heart. I don't have the luxury of never losing, of stopping fighting after failure that she has. I have to fail and move on, imperfect and with the knowledge that I may, that I will…fail again…in the process of doing my job."
Thane said "At her urging, but also due to my new-found ability to provide context to my life previously inaccessible, I do wish to tell you and I wish to apologize, abjectly and with my life, for the last time I touched you, when I did you harm, backward and panicked. My life should be taken from me for that. That is why I offer it. I guessed at your past, your mannerisms, your attitudes and asked you to provide only enough information to answer my question as to whether or not someone lived that I wished to murder. It was not in defense of you but was my need to kill. That is why I am mesadi pernaq. I was trained to kill, dispassionately and efficiently, but for years I have killed to serve my personal urging, for money, for ego, to avenge my wife, to avenge you, to give vent to impulses I did not intend to set loose in the world. I am still capable of efficiency, but my dispassion is gone, replaced by directed need that fuels itself and burns brighter with each kill. My need for personal vengeance overwhelmed my duty to protect your truths in that moment. My need for personal vengeance shadowed every step through Yahlis's maze. You did not wish to say more, and your question to me…I did not answer fully, was unable to answer fully, unprepared for the question. I dismissed it as a valid question and deflected. I answered it…but I avoided the subject as it pertained to my experiences, and took out my frustrations and anger on you. I harmed you, and I know you forgave…could forgive…but I do not understand why you did not kill me then, why you would not kill me now. I am a child, raging in pain, and I lost myself not as a powerless child but as a vengeful man. I told you, promised you that I would not begin again as a child to learn truths, that I would remain a cool, dispassionate man, and I see that is not true, can never be true, that to learn I must begin there. Seeing with perspective that I was tortured has given me a taste for it, the knowledge of how effective it is. It is a sickness. Now there is an element of personal pain in each life I take. Now your full answer is in my mind, and I wish for my full answer to be in yours. Not a trade. They are not equal, but because I took from you, withheld from you what belonged to you through my mind's own ability to justify, to misclassify, to hide. I know that giving now will not create a balance, that I must learn to not take, and that I do not have faith that I will learn how to do that before doing more harm."
Jane said quietly "All right. If you tell me it is important, it is important."
Thane closed his eyes and the raw pain passing over his face made her wish for a bright panicked moment that he would choose not to tell her. She should tell him right now that it didn't matter, that she didn't want to hear. She sat helpless as the moment passed, and then he said "I spoke of a trial, four people, one cycle, voluntary. What I withheld is that beyond that trial I then received extensive training in sex, thorough. I will spare you those details. Yahlis knew that my training did not end at that event, that it led to me volunteering to aid another in their trial. I was one among four, and I…" He closed his eyes, drew a breath and said "Assisted…the trial of a young Drell girl, fourteen, the same age I had undergone my trial. I was…effective. She broke and ran and I thought…I thought she was a disgrace. I have a perfect memory, but I also have an imagination, just as vivid, and now I see you in her place, with my arrogant, cold, creative, diligent execution of duty in the name of education. I hear you scream, I hear you beg, I see you break away and I feel contempt for you. Yahlis could have been that young woman. She is 19 years old now, the same age you were when you killed Corbin. It was not her, we had never met, but I am certain she endured it, if not from me, then from someone exactly like me. She also caused another to endure. I believe now that we were never intended to meet, that the young woman I violated was not a trainee of any sort. Beyond whether or not my imagination and reality are vile, my assumption was that she was someone like me with pride and diligence, who would properly appreciate my efforts and thank me. I had not thought of it as significant, only as failure in another. In my mind it was a progression, ignorance to education to application, and now I know that either way, I raped, abused and drove a captive child beyond what she could endure. Is it less vile either way, that I would do this without knowing, without remorse or even thought for years? With personal pride? Would I have killed her in my contempt had she struck me and not run?"
He looked down at his hands in fists on the table. He said calmly "I caused you pain, righteously, in an effort to control your behavior, not that I understood I was doing that at the time…and that is the problem. I did not understand what I was doing, but I thought I did. I did not have control over myself. You did not kill me as I deserved…despite everything you have been through…and I allowed you to justify it, we both justified it…"
He looked at her, desperate, hoarse, exhausted and broken. He said quietly as he spread his fingers out over the table deliberately "You are my judge in this, Siha. I live or die by your choice. I do not deserve mercy, and yet you have given it, repeatedly, and I cannot speak for you. I offered you my arm against the Collectors, and we succeeded in that aim, but I have failed you, before you were taken, after you were taken, before we met, when I held back truths that belonged to you as I stole yours, forced them from you with the knowledge of you that I hold, that you gave me, with my righteous abuse of the permissions and trust you granted. I promised you my arm, but not my tongue, and then I withdrew my arm and used it for my own purposes once the mission I had promised was fulfilled, once I was my own man, free and contemptuous and vile."
Jane felt a familiar rise of bile, and she swallowed it back, closed her eyes, tilted her head down and tried to think rather than feel or remember. She had been braced for pity and disgust, and she managed…just barely…to restrain herself, to not allow this moment to push her into expressed wrath, the story inseparable from the sting of remembered venom on her tongue from two separate sources and knowing what it was to scream from prideful and diligent application of educational pain, from Corbin and from Thane and from Yahlis.
She couldn't kill him. She couldn't walk out of this room alone, a body behind her.
She could. He would stand down and she could end him in seconds.
Part of him wanted her to end him. Part of her wanted to do it. Part of her also wanted to end herself.
To be haras tal.
She had told Garrus 'Words can hurt me, but I will do my best to duck if it comes to that.'
She imagined Garrus outside, heartsick and head sick, thick with pain and regret of his choices, driven to suspicion and fear after hours of tormented waiting, sending Omni Tool messages, getting no answer, breaking in, finding them…permanent crushing of the hope she had encouraged him to honor…
Garrus, again, from a distance, by his existence, tempering her wrath, drawing her from breath to breath.
This is what you get when you walk into traps when you are unprepared. It was a truth, a slicing truth in the vulnerable places. She was not as shocked as she might have been. She felt some contempt for herself because she hadn't asked before she recruited him, 'by the way, are you or have you ever been an unrepentant rapist' and now she cared because it was personal. Now it mattered, when she'd gone far out of her way to avoid knowing such a thing before, in order to maintain a professional relationship, to indulge in a personal one. She had known that the moment she shook his hand and accepted him on board, because she needed him, because he was willing to expend himself, because he had just demonstrated how useful he could be, she would not look too closely at his past. Perhaps she was numbed to it, perhaps that was a good thing.
Perhaps good was relative and she should learn that 'healing' does not mean that her personality or past had transformed. It meant she went back to being able to move in the worlds of those who are good and those who are not, not as a traveler, but because she lived there.
Echoes of when she and Thane first colluded to entwine barbed minds and lives. She'd known then. This is why she was not as shocked as she could have been. This was not new information, only specific information that lights up your currently small, cramped and pained mind with memories.
'Jane…what if I am nothing but hunger and death and lies?'
'Thane…what if your hunger matches mine? What if I ask you to kill every day? What if I owe my life to your lies?'
And what had she thought of her ability to find those words in tiremet? 'Never let it be said that Commander Shepard was not expert at pushing people's buttons.'
She had justified his actions on Omega because she had looked at him as though she wished the man had more fingers to break, that wrath and righteous fury were what she wanted…and he gave them to her. She had forgiven him…because she knew she had provoked him. She was the cause of his physical injuries, she was the cause of his becoming emotionally unhinged, the source of that passion.
You used him. You pressured him into a relationship he was not ready to experience and you had the fucking gall to consider it a positive act. You forced him to live when he wanted to lay down his burdens, lay down being a burden. The stresses of caring for you broke his body and his mind apart. The Hanar used him, you used him, Yahlis used him and convinced him it was on your behalf, and it was, but it was also with her cruel, twisting hand and she fucked him over so thoroughly through knowing what was inside your mind that he's sitting here waiting to die. Hoping to die.
He knows he deserves to die, he wants to die, he has wanted to die since you've known him.
But he still had the potential to be of use, and the potential to learn.
And you still…love him…and he deserves better, and the only person that can give it to him is you…by letting him live, but letting him soak in hope and faith through Garrus's skin and voice. By being able to pass this point, leave it behind him, just as you're struggling to leave your fuck ups behind you. By not being a cold, using bitch. If you can learn before doing more harm.
He could save more Drell children, ironically and tragically using his training to keep them from being trained the same way. He could save more targets from indoctrination, from what she'd experienced or worse. He could end what created him. He could hold up Rakhana's sky, provide an unambiguous service to Her people, to his people. He could admit he was not the pinnacle of perfection he had been promised he would be. He could move forward, walking wounded, and not give up as Yahlis had, paralyzed.
He had the courage to sit here and await a killing blow he could have avoided. He delivered what she needed, faced her when Yahlis couldn't. He'd suppress all his training to let her take that strike.
He was a significant factor in the fact that she was alive, to be able to have vulnerable places to slice.
That had to be enough.
She raised her eyes to his and they were not cold, and her voice was not harsh. She said "Yes. You were contemptuous…and vile…and in pain, physically, intellectually and emotionally. I have encouraged you to be that person, valued that person. You are not as free as you think, and neither am I. As a child you had so many choices taken from you, you were in captivity much as my own, for a lifetime. After seven weeks I tried to kill you. I would have killed you coldly, arrogantly, efficiently and diligently. Your will, my will were paralyzed and our only guidance came from those who sought to use us. I can't speak for the girl except to echo her screams, her pain, and I believe you understand screams and pain. I don't think adding more pain or screams, yours or my own, will accomplish anything useful. We both know that screaming, causing screams and causing pain can be…can feel…very good, but I don't want to honor that aspect of our personalities right now. I can speak to the act, which was inspired by the Hanar who used you. I blame them for putting her in that room, for putting you in that room before her and with her. I do not hold the man responsible for the boy's thoughts and actions. In some ways, Thane, I don't hold you as a man responsible for what you learned as a boy, what you have not unlearned. Perhaps you are not fully formed, whole, and you have enough freedom to be dangerous, learning in a high-impact environment. Okay. Freedom gives you choices and you haven't the experience to choose wisely. You have to gather knowledge, experience, before you can formulate wisdom. You were denied the right to fail at any and every turn. You were denied the right to gain knowledge or experience in so many directions, and now you are starting over, in the body of a deadly, powerful and vengeful man. I asked you to use your talents, hard won and highly prized, I could not afford you, and you gave them freely, saved my life, loved me the best you could. I have loved you the best I could. We can both do better. We are both flawed, and enough in the same ways that…right or not…judged or not…I can't take your life. If you know better now…if this is a moment of gained wisdom, we move forward and…we will make new mistakes. There may be ghosts in this room with no voices except the ones we hear in our heads that know that we both deserve to die, that we collude to conceal them. We have both made errors in judgment, negligence, arrogance or omission that condemn us both to righteous death several times over to serve the justice demanded by those ghosts. We can honor that and fail, fall now, or we can realize we can still be of use in the fight, that the mistakes we made, the prices that other people paid for our mistakes drive the responsibility we have to do better, without expectation of forgiveness or reward."
His face opened up into vulnerable confusion and there, more than in the fact that he knew to glove his hands, more than anything else, made her heart bleed for this man, holes punched through her again. He had no idea how to move forward. But he would try, and she did not regret for a moment loving him, though she thought he should regret loving her. She said more as Jane, less as Shepard "I will leave Yahlis where she is, off the board. She was right about that. Depending on what you know, what you can tell me, I don't need her, and that seems to be her intent, to spare herself having to wake up and see me, answer questions. To spare me having to need those answers from her. It's an elegant solution. Thank you for the gloves…and the promise not to touch me. I need that. I may never…be able to experience venom again and I am not in a hurry to find out. I love you, but I am broken glass inside. I could not touch Garrus either, I still…I still can't. Maybe you both can console each other. I think Garrus will understand exactly why you did what you did. He would have wanted to do it himself. There is no rift there, he is only waiting for me to choose, and I choose hope. Of course…save children, save as many as you can, ask for any help you might need or take as much time as that might require. I had…I had considered asking Yahlis to help, I was prepared to attempt to secure her aid, to set my personal concerns aside, to save Hanar, to save Drell…and you have already done that. My fear of her lay in what she could do with what she knew of me, of having every opportunity to regain my command or have any influence robbed with one Extranet transmission. To have her slowly erode the structure of my life, of my command, of my ambitions. If you tell me that won't happen, I believe you. I don't need any more proof, your words are enough. My personal concerns with you are set aside until we find more stable ground. I love you, and that does not change, we can figure out the rest. Your time, your efforts were not wasted. Your cabin is yours. You are welcome on the Normandy, if Garrus allows. Berth your transport there, I assume you have Yahlis's shuttle or another. Teach me Pon-Ifa, I know I've already lost the game that's paused in…my…cabin. We can play out the final inevitable moves and begin another. Perhaps for now…we will behold each other, and be comforted. Garrus has asked me to promise to not allow myself to be touched until I want it for myself, and I will…try…to figure that out. Maybe you need to set limits of your own, so I do not encroach on what you need as you learn to set your own boundaries. I will make mistakes. I know you'd rather die than make another mistake, and in some ways I would rather die myself than make more faulty decisions with the potential costs we face …but that's not really a choice that's on the table. We're all in or we're all out."
He said with shocked hoarseness, taking in what she had said, getting out the poison in his heart, bleeding it into the room "Yahlis told me of the ampules you had implanted, and why you had them. That I drove you to implanting them."
Jane laughed at the shared experience of having Yahlis work them both over so very effectively and said "I need you, Thane. That's something Yahlis doesn't know and wouldn't believe if I told her. I don't just love you…and I do love you, don't doubt that, but I also need you. Without you teaching me Pon-Ifa or letting me share your venom, I wouldn't have seen her for who she was. Without you and Garrus working so seamlessly together I would have died…so many times. In one week together we saved over three hundred thousand lives, likely including mine. Dr. Kenson is recovering. The personnel from the Bahak system are recovering. We did that. It does matter that we did that, that we could do more. Yahlis has never saved…anybody…or loved anybody…she doesn't just not understand, she can't understand. You should be able to see that. You're further along that road, to seeing love, admitting it's real. For her it was only a compulsion, one she attributed to Gods because she could not see it any other way. You've learned to trust. You've given everything to work as a team. You knew Garrus would restrain me so you could focus on her. I saw the recording. You were the only one focused on her and not staring at my face, at my gun. The ampules were there in case I needed to die, Thane, not because I didn't trust you. I knew that if you thought I was going to die…I was going to die, that you'd see that before I did likely, and that you'd go to effective extremes to keep me alive, keep me from making that choice. I needed them because I trust you, because along with your newly discovered passion for possible torture in extremes, which you encounter quite often thanks to me, you also have a newly discovered ability to love, to give yourself fully to that, to commit, to save me at the expense of everything you have ever held dear. That you have reached a binary conclusion where my life holds a value of 1 and yours holds a 0 and you grant it no value, you will throw it away without thought, and again…I inspired that in you. I may not understand you, and maybe I never will, but the only time you've done me harm was when you were in so much physical pain you could not think straight and you were afraid and angry and some asshole ripped your control from you by threatening to sell me into slavery, and I looked at you as though I wished you could do more harm to him. Context matters. Every other day of my acquaintance with you, including today, I see how far you go to try to eradicate your own needs and serve mine. I am aware that the only time I should disagree with your judgment in a tactical sense is if I am going to die as a result and I accept that outcome. Both you and Garrus will not allow that, you've told me that, I needed to be prepared. I also won't ask you to promise to let me die because…we have limits. I have limits, you have limits, and I try to prepare for them and respect them. You need to learn your limits."
He almost looked through that as though he were about to cry, and so was she, but they held their faces, and then in the trailing silence Thane said with the lightest touch of humor "That does not sound like something I would do."
She laughed. That tiny suggestion of a smile on his face, surrounding his eyes, in his voice…she loved this man so much. She started to cry and said "I have missed you…so much…and it kills me that this…that I let…that I will let this come between us. I'm so sorry. I am…I am shallow after all."
He stood and took something from a pocket. He came to stand beside her and reached out one hand, asked "Your Omni Tool, may I?"
She held out her hand and activated it. He cradled her arm in his palm, warn leather and mutual wonder, held up a small disk, and she realized what it was. He gave her a questioning look and she nodded. He dropped it in with the familiar quickly covered sting, and braided light appeared on her wrist. He reached over to his own Omni Tool and the same colors in different patterns appeared on his. He said "I believe that you are a woman who appreciates effort, Siha."
She reached out and held his lit hand with hers, and the danger and worry sank out of her. No trap. No danger. The danger was now outside this room, dormant in the skin she would not touch, that would not touch her, absent in his voice, in his intention. She held on, his fingers light, warm, unmoving. His body and hers released held breath, tension and embraced relief. There could be hope, there could be healing. In which direction neither of them knew and that didn't matter right now.
Primarily they had a job to do and the means to do it, to act as a team.
Good news was enough. Hanar and Drell, potential targets of assassination and indoctrination protected through the studied, coordinated and vengeful acts of two people that right now inspired love, wrath, respect, contempt and ambivalence all at once.
She said "Is there anything else you have to tell me now, or can it wait? I believe my questions are exhausted for the moment."
He said "Nothing more. I shall speak to Garrus. I will disclose the medical information, Yahlis's disposition and my present and projected future activity on Kahje. Perhaps we can stay here a day or two, speak again when you have recovered, and decide what part of the truth belongs to other people."
She nodded and said "Garrus does not know…about Yahlis, about Corbin. I would prefer that it stay that way but if you need to make a case where you feel something of a more personal nature must be divulged, ask me. I trust you to know what information is of tactical value to determining the mechanisms of indoctrination and to disclose that. Please hand over medical or tactical information of value, destroy the rest. I know it's all…in your head…and always will be. I provided the information that Drell assassin venom was used as an inducement, but I did not disclose the relationship that began in that room, that ends in this room."
Thane said gently "She wished me to say only one thing to you, if you were willing to hear my words, accept her service. 'Kar iva'las.'"
Words of truth struggled with silence. Thane's chosen clothing exposed none of his skin, even concealed his throat in deference to her, in the spirit of the gloves. He had visited a tailor before meeting. Of course he had. Very Thane. The familiarity of his mindfulness and attention to detail, arranged for her benefit and not his struck her. Something that was theirs, his, not lumped into "Drell" or "danger" but reminders of why she loved him, signs that she would helplessly continue to love him. She stood and rested her head on his shoulder, her hands on his waist. His arms came around her in careful, gentle embrace, one hand cradling the back of her head, fingers dividing the fall of her hair. She stood in the circle of his arms and cried.
This she could do, could always do with him, share silence. He hummed for her and the sound trailed through her spine. He could become himself, a new self, separate slowly from the last months. She had changed, he had changed, and they would do their jobs and perhaps find time later to do more than stand helpless together, sharing burdens. Perhaps never find their way out of that, but they could have this. She stayed there until tears stopped, breathing steadied. She said "Let's go let Garrus know. He will be glad to see us both walk out alive, grateful for good news on top of that."
He said of the looming future and the jagged past "I have considered that death would be a great deal easier." She heard doubt, fear, things he never used to allow in his voice. Things he was trying to deal with, as she was. He had lost much of his cold surety and superior demeanor. It sounded good on him. Also very Thane.
Her mouth quirked "You and me both. In my case it wasn't fun, and it didn't take, and it wasted time. Let's go make some mistakes."
They didn't hold hands, and there was a deliberate distance between them as Garrus watched them walk toward him. His eyes moved to the light on her wrist, the light on Thane's. Garrus would have seen his darkened wrist, covered skin, gloves when he went to go see Thane before. Now Garrus's smile was immediate if cautious and conflicted, relief and questions in his eyes.
They were alive, and he was no longer the only one of the three with hope and memory ringing his wrist, the only one of them for whom it had not gone out or retreated until it could no longer be seen.
They walked to him, and with each step she felt the warmth and hope soak into her the way it always did when Garrus was near. They hadn't decided who would speak first and before someone decided to speak to be informative, Garrus took a step forward and settled his arms carefully around their shoulders, gathered them in, keeping them separate, not touching, but home. His head slumped forward in relief and she touched her forehead to his crest. Thane did the same, each move slow, each touch careful and gentle from all three of them.
Home seemed possible, even if right now was as close as she ever got, it was enough.
Garrus spoke first and said, shaky "Well. I'm terrified."
Thane said with the now familiar shock, hoarse "As am I, Invas'nam."
Jane said with fake grouch that didn't quite make it, tremor in her voice "I don't know what's wrong with you guys, I'm fine."
Garrus laughed and she kissed his mandible lightly and said "I'm going to give you guys some time. I'll go lie down and take a hopefully not-terrified nap."
She touched her fingers to Thane's hand lightly and walked back on shaking knees.
Please both be alive when I wake up…
I'm feeling pretty good about this and I'd hate to ruin it.