Chapter 29: Limbo

N/A: Boom! two chapters in one day. As usual please review and thanks for the views

"I wanted to see you".

She stopped in her tracks and turning slowly to look at him.
"Cool, I'll see you back on the ship in an hour or two." His heart dimmed as she shrugged and continued past him her hips carrying the grace of water. He couldn't leave his words unsaid and his questions left unanswered for another moment and the prospect of returning to the ship seemed unbearable. Before he knew it, his lips were moving again.
"Perhaps I could join you". She stopped again but did not turn this time. When she spoke her voice was distant.
"I don't have a real plan of where I'm going or what I'm going to do".
"Siha I would still be grateful to accompany you". Her shoulders seemed to soften and she gave an off hand gesture of resignation. He followed her silently through bright streets and winding alleyways; past shops and abandoned buildings still left crumbling in Sovereign's wake. The station he knew so well in the years he had spent here seemed so untouched, brighter and so unfamiliar as she led the way. As if he had only seen it through fog and haze. Each step sure and determined she moved like air and water occasionally casting him a glance as if to measure how long it would take for him to get tired and give up. But he kept up with her pace, patient. As they walked they passed more and more people until the people merged into a noisy crowd. "What's going on?" Thane asked following Shepard's form weaving through the mass of people. They reached a part were the congregation thinned and a procession of oddly dressed humans in vibrant colours walked and danced past, amongst moving platforms made out to look like faces, forests and a whole host of other things he could not name. Loud music played and a bass line rumbled and everyone seemed to be in high spirits. Shepard finally stopped a smile playing on her lips and turned to answer the question.

"This is a human carnival, there are different versions of it in different countries back on Earth and the colonies, and this is the first carnival to be held at the Citadel. I couldn't miss it" she said watching the dancers.

Thane nodded still not completely understanding. He guessed he would learn more from observing: He noted that many of the humans seemed to be dressed as birds or wearing very little. Most wore masks obscuring their faces completely or just the top half and elaborate headdresses crowned with feathers that towered above. Throughout the procession humans danced suggestively separately and with each other and blew horns loudly. The explosion of colour, the fluid moves of the dancers and the spirit of their festivities drowned out the mundaneness of the polished metal and neat sidewalks of the Citadel. And he understood why other species had felt intimidated; there was no containing of the Humans. The human woman beside him had long began her own silent coup of his mind, infiltrating the most secret of his desires. He noticed a Salarian shaking his head in the crowd, but he also looked on in amusement at a seemingly inebriated Turian with various multi coloured beads tangled around his neck dancing clumsily behind one of the floats. In fact more people of other species were beginning to join in. It was truly a sight to behold. Shepard beckoned to a young human drink vendor who sauntered over.

"What is the purpose of this?" Thane questioned. "There are different stories of how it started, one is that it marks the end of Lent which is a religious period of fasting and prayer, another is that it is meant to celebrate the harvest and yet another is that it was a way to celebrate the end of slavery in some countries". She motioned to him to ask whether he wanted a drink and Thane shook his head in reply. She lifted the can to her lips finishing it in just a few gulps. She noticed him looking and looked furtively away crushing the can in her fist before throwing it into the garbage.

They made their way through the masquerade, the onlookers and the revellers down to a small food stall with tables and chairs set out on the artificial lawn. The rich aroma of the strange cuisine wafted through the air. You could still make out the procession and the music but it was less intrusive at that distance and he was grateful for that. He joined her chosen table as she poured over the menu and linked his fingers beneath his chin. He had no idea what any of the food was so Shepard tried to explain what everything was, but conscious of the fact that she had set out intending to be on her own, he just asked her to pick anything and he would enjoy it. The waitress had returned with a plate if what looked like long thin worms for him and a plate of something that looked like grains and neat for Shepard. He almost regretted his decision to let her order for him but he had found the food to be quite nice.

"How long has it been since you've been on Earth?" he said trying to make good use of the strange utensils.
"I haven't been back since I...woke up, but it was a about a month before the first Normandy got shot down." Her eyes were sad as she speared morsels of food with her fork and he realised that she may not get the chance to return before their final mission.
"Where did you visit?"
"I travelled around a bit; Vancouver, London, Singapore, Mogadishu...It was a good trip"
"Visiting family? I would have liked to visit, the parade suggests it would be interesting"
"Visiting family was part of it, it was the first and only shore leave I got to share with my ex." Calling him an ex-boyfriend or partner or lover just seemed weird. She had never thought if their relationship in terms of titles, it was just Kaidan and Amanda and back then and she could hope for a future between them. Thane remember the ex, he must have been the man in the picture on her desk. He wondered if Shepard had been in touch with him and a feeling of annoyance and frustration settled in him that refused to move no matter how he tried to rationalise it.
She looked up at him and smiled. "Maybe you still could visit." It was wishful thinking, but thinking that coloured his thoughts nonetheless.

"I wanted to thank you again for helping me save my son"

"I'm glad I was able to help and that things are going well for you and Kolyat"

"I've been thinking about you…Will you hear my confession Siha?" Her eyes darted to his face.

"I thought you were going to explain what that meant."

He needed to choose his words carefully. He wanted nothing more than to tell her. "I need to explain myself first. Once I eliminated the ones who had come for Irikah I became adrift. I had no goal and no future with my illness bearing down on me. I accepted the Dantius commission because I didn't know what else to do."

"That's not a healthy attitude to take on a mission" she said with eyebrows raised.

"You're right it's not, looking back at it it's clear I had resigned myself to death." She put down her fork and looked him square in the eye, her mouth set in disbelief. "I would have fulfilled my contract. If Nassana's guards caught me afterwards, it would have been a good death. But someone else was heading for the target, pushing me, challenging me. I had to reach her first. It is through you that I survived and that I have the chance to make amends"

She leaned back in her chair with a bemused expression on her face. "Thane look, you did those things, not me. You don't have to keep thanking me. Give yourself some credit"

A small smile crept on to her face. "It is funny to think that you're wounded pride served as encouragement though"

"Pride is the line between a professional and a thug"

"You have to teach me some of those moves sometime"

"I would like that" their eyes met again and the intensity of his gaze caused Shepard to look away first and push the remains of her meal around her plate.

"I believe you are already trained in that territory however" He remarked.

"And what makes you think that?"

"The way you move in battle sometimes. There is a fluidity about it, a certain deadly grace. It is something that would not be noticed by the untrained eye." He said noticing the look of surprise on her face.

"Well… yeah. I've done my fair share of hand to hand combat training. I don't have the advantage of being a biotic so I had to be lethal whether I had a gun or not. I did mixed martial arts before I joined the military then I got the hardcore stuff with the N7 program training." A small smile played on his lips and Shepard regarded him with interest, caught off guard by the fact that he had noticed despite never really seeing her in a hand to hand fight.

"Did you ever try to find your parents?" He asked.

"No"

"Why not?"

"I figured if they wanted to know me they would have contacted me. I'm using their name that's good enough." She folded her arms leaning back in her seat.

"Is there anything you know about them?" She shrugged dismissively.

"No, Miranda reckons they were sand heads which I suppose could be true, but back when I was little people used to tell me they had probably died in the war to make me feel better."

"Is that why you joined the Alliance?"

"No"

Her eyes grew distant, the amber of them fading slightly as she looked first at her hands then past him. He wanted to pull her back and make her present.

"Back when Humans discovered the mass relays they had to come to terms with the fact that there were more than likely other sentient life forms in the galaxy and they could possibly be hostile. As a result Humans began to focus their efforts on unifying the various countries and colonies and raising a military that would be able to defend the territories. It became essential for humans to increase the inclusion of women in combat positions and to make humanity in general stronger and smarter so a lot of gene therapy and other genetic means were used to level as well as heighten the playing field. As you may know Humanity doesn't really have a positive track record when it comes to war so in the past the civilian population has tended to be opposed to the military. So the military had to change. It needed to be or appear more transparent, appeal to a larger cross section of society, it had to respect diversity, make well reasoned decisions. Pay more. And so we now have the Alliance of which tens of millions of humans are amongst its active members. A lot of people consider it as a career choice".

"You make it sound idealistic."

"Yeah" She sighed fiddling idly with her fork. "It's flawed, very flawed, but I grew up in it."

"So why did you join the Alliance?" he leaned forward in his chair. It was so strange the way he blinked with two different sets of eyelids and the inky blackness of his eyes. She could study his face all day and not be bored.

"I was running. I did something I couldn't reverse and couldn't regret. I couldn't continue my life with the Reds and the Alliance gave me a way out." She said reluctant to spill the details.

"That's it?"

"Put it this way. I had a choice to save someone or leave them to die, but saving them meant I couldn't continue with my old life. I don't even know if I was successful, and I guess I'll never know…" Her voice trailed off a little but she continued; "Look there are some things I'm not ready to tell you, but maybe in time I will be."

A silence passed between them, so unlike the familiar lapses in verbal communication they shared before. He had come out here to speak to her not to make her uncomfortable and he worried whether things would ever be the same between them again.

"My past…it bothers you."

"…it's not like that..." She said, her protest fading with the music in the distance.

"I failed Kolyat and Irikah, it is only logical for you to see me in a bad light and believe I will fail you also and I do not blame you. I have disappointed you and I am sorry." The burden did not lighten the more he spoke and he could only guess that it was his lot to bear. He wished things could have been different, that he could have made better decisions at the time and not been so consumed. She looked to the distance with her hands folded in her lap. He wished he could look into her eyes again and hopefully gauge her expression.

"Thane I don't want to mix up my feelings with your situation. Believe me those murderers had it coming and I can't imagine what you went through. I am an orphan. I was fortunate to have people who wanted to play the role of parents later on in my life, but the fact remains that my biological parents left me and early on I was pretty messed up. It makes me the person you see before you. I have no idea why my parents left and when i was younger I used to wonder how my life would be if my parents stayed. But that's my problem. I know you love your son, it just brought up memories. It's nothing"

"It isn't nothing, Siha tell me, speak your mind"

"I can relate to what Kolyat feels and I was like Mouse once, but I ended up doing a lot more questionable things than peddling stolen goods and providing information for thugs. I used to run for a man once when I was a child and that was hell."

"What happened?" he prodded, encouraging her to continue and wanting to know all she felt, but he was unprepared for the answer.

"I killed him." He blinked scarcely believing what he had heard. "He used to brutalise me and the other kids, so one day I just couldn't take it anymore. I had to put an end to it. That was the first time I ever killed anyone." His chest tightened and he felt so wretched he wished for the ground to swallow him up.

"Siha, I have no idea…Gods you must think I'm a monster…"

"Thane stop. I spoke to Mouse I know you never knowingly put those kids in danger. The man I killed was nothing like you, not in the slightest and I wish my birth parents could have swooped in and saved me from making my first kill." She shook her head as if to clear her thoughts. "I'm no angel. A lot of the things you did… I get why you took those actions. She paused for a moment deep in thought.

"Why didn't you tell me Kolyat was ill?" He became visibly uncomfortable at the question.
"It was irrelevant" he said in tones of steel, but she persisted undeterred.
"No it wasn't, explain to me why it was irrelevant." He seemed to make himself smaller.
"Thane, please, I want to understand...I want to understand you."
"I do not need to use my son as an excuse, I have dishonoured him enough" He wanted to get up to leave, to retreat to the ship and his meditations but the fire in her eyes made him remain.
"It's not an excuse, it's a reason. That's the reason you went freelance isn't it?"
He sat in silence but his eyes betrayed him.
"And why Irikah didn't protest…"Now it was his turn to look away.
"Just...talk to me" she reached out for his hand before she could stop it. And the words tumbled from his lips.
"After the Hanar released me, I had enough money so that if I never worked again, Irikah and I could live a simple life and raise a family. When Kolyat...when he was born there were complications and we had to seek treatment off world. Within two years we couldn't keep up for all the surgeries and treatment he needed...freelance work was the best solution"
"You saved Kolyat, both times. You got there in time. You have to acknowledge that. There's time to make it right. Irikah's death was not your fault ok? The important thing now is that you're rebuilding your relationship with your son. We may not be able to change the past but I'm happy to see you're working so hard to make things right and I'm here for you. Thane you don't need to confess to me or ask my forgiveness. I don't stand in judgement over you. I don't have that kind of power."

Her warm words soothed the disquiet in his soul. He had laid out all to her and he felt as if he could breathe freely again as if he was finally back on dry land after being cast out to sea to drown. A multitude of emotions coursed through him as Shepard sat on silence having said her piece. She denied her power but he knew that it existed in those eyes of blazing amber. She was a balm for the soul and his spirit no longer restless with loathing was calm. He was renewed in purpose and his heart no longer heavy with trepidation.

With the meal finished the two left the seated area of the eatery and sat on the adjacent lawn. She fixed her eyes on him again. "I think I understand why you feel that way. My ma and brother are out there somewhere and they don't even know I'm alive. I keep telling myself I'm protecting them from Cerberus and that I can't put them through the pain of my death again, but it doesn't stop me from feeling like I've abandoned them."

His heart ached for her and he had to stop himself from putting his arm around her.
"I will remind you that you haven't and one day you will see them again"
"Thank you" she said her smile as warm as the Rakhana sun.

She pulled at the blades of grass absentmindedly. "Hmmm, so if we've both absolved each other, we should feel better, don't you think?"
"Yes Siha"
"You know you still haven't told me what that means"
"Perhaps later"
So rose up from the grass brushing her hands off against each other.
"Let's walk"

They walked from street to street aimlessly. It was funny how strangers would just walk up to her and ask for help without even knowing who she was and despite how unassuming she looked in her casual outfit of jeans and a bright red tank top. He watched her step in and settle a dispute between a young Quarian and an irate Volus even going as far to stick up for the wrongly accused girl and threatening a C sec officer. She went into Rodams Hunting Supplies and despite the frankly hostile reception from the salesman, by the time she was ready to walk out he was laughing and joking with her and offering her a 50% discount. Not satisfied with the armour piercing rounds she had bought, he found himself standing with her at another kiosk supplying rifles that she ogled her hands pressed against the glass.

"Now that right there is what I want."
She said longingly her eyes fixed on a Mattock Assault rifle.
"Jacob says he can get me one, but seeing it in the window like that makes me more than a little impatient."
They stepped into the store looking around at the wide array of choice and then something caught Thane's eye.
"Perhaps a sniper rifle would be a wiser choice"
"And why's that?" She said sauntering over to the display he stood before.
"A sniper rifle is by far a much more elegant weapon and one that can last a lifetime with the proper maintenance"
She raised her eyebrows at him.
"Take this for instance" he said lifting the rifle off the display and holding it as gently as one holds a child. "Black Widow version V. Powerful, lightweight, adjustable stock, the lowest cool down time of any rifle without reducing any of its firing power." He raised it up to his shoulder, his finger ghosting over the trigger."Suitable for both organic and materiel targets and its design allows for quicker reload time. It is by far a superior weapon available on the market. All you need do is pick your rounds." he noticed the smirk on her lips too late."Oh I am talking too much." he said embarrassed. She laughed amused at seeing Thane so fired up and talkative like this. It was endearing for someone who always seemed so calm, collected and aloof.
"Why don't you get one?" She asked, genuinely curious.
"…My modified rifle is suitably effective and efficient" he said quietly.
"Then why are you over here lusting after this one?" She teased.
He remained silent unable to give an answer.
"Why do you have such an attachment to old things?"
"Why do humans always feel the need to upgrade?"
"Hey don't answer my question with a question" she moved closer each word the sweet note of a siren call "...if you really, really want it Krios, which I suspect you do, I could order in a few, and you could still keep your old gun"
Their hands brushed as she took the rifle from his hands, testing its weight and raising it to her shoulder experimentally.
"I must admit it is pretty cool" She carefully returned it to its holder and looked at him expectantly. He looked from her to the gun and made up his mind.

"Ok, I'll take it"


The night cycle was just beginning when they got to the cafe in the midst of the Apollo Ward bright with signs in script he couldn't understand and bustling with people. For once he had no cares or worries of tomorrow. He sat beside her a cup of tea warming his palms.

"You saw someone you knew the last time you were here, where did you know her from?"
"Oh, Mary. She helped train me as an N7 and later on she was my CO. She's not with the Alliance anymore though. She was dishonourably discharged, her reputation disgraced. She is one crazy bitch."

"Liara used to say I should keep my distance from her to avoid her reputation rubbing off on me, but as messed up as she may be I owe her a lot. Not many people got to see her good sides."

"Liara, what is she to you?"
"A friend, a good one."
"She seems fond of you"
"We were together, if you could call it that." She offered reluctantly averting her eyes. "Very briefly. It was something that shouldn't have happened. It was a dark place for me...for both of us." She worried at her lip. "She helped me when we went after Saren and when I died, she retrieved my body. She's someone else I owe a lot to."

"She has a sadness in her eyes when she looks at you." Shepard signed a dejected expression on her face. "I hurt her badly when I ended it. I care about her a great deal it's just that I never really intended for it to happen and I had never seen her in that way before. It just sort of happened. I used her to take out my own problems and if I'm honest I resented her for bringing me back to life. It just got too intense."

"You didn't want to live?" he said alarmed.

"It wasn't as simple as that…" she began, racking her brain for the right words. "I like being alive on my own terms, not someone else's. I just feel like a caged animal at times. I'd rather be free."

"I think I understand" he said covering her hand with his. Every hair on her arm stood on end and she seemed to tense up a little, but she didn't shirk away. He finally realised it: She was nervous.

"But you know, no use moping about, I just have to get on with it"

"As I look to the end of my life my memories keep my going, they make things bearable for me."
"Are you sure about that? Dwelling in the past doesn't seem like a sound coping strategy to me." She said bluntly. "Things feel better in real life, than when you're just thinking about them, or remembering them."

"Perhaps it is different for humans," he theorised "memories are precious, sacred even to Drell."

"Well there's nothing stopping you from making new ones."

He blinked rapidly. Humans could make a sentence and ascribe 6 different meanings at the same time was what he had heard others say. Maybe this was one such time or maybe he was imagining things and projecting his own wayward thoughts onto her words. She drained her cup and his eyes involuntary drifted to the contours of her neck and the lines of her collar bones.

"I'm going to ask you a question and I want you to be honest: Are you sure you should still be on this mission?"
"Siha I made a vow to see this mission through, I am a man of my word"

"Yes but that was before Kolyat. Please…at least just sleep on it." She brought her hand under her chin, her expression pensive. "You know all of this stuff today is making me homesick…you ever hear of a thing called dessert Thane?"

"Dessert?"

"Yes human custom. When you have a savoury meal you have something sweet to eat after it." He looked on bemused as she became more animated smiling in that special way she did. "My Ma used to make the best pancakes ever. They are meant to be a breakfast food but they are sweet so I guess they could still count. I can still remember the recipe by heart." She said getting up as if to leave.

"Where are you going?" he asked puzzled

"To get some eggs, flour, sugar…" noticing the puzzled expression on the Drell's face she clarified, "To make pancakes-back at the apartment. I think gardener would appreciate it more if I didn't encroach on his kitchen."


45 minutes later they were heading back to the apartment she had come to rely on for escape, arms laden with shopping bags full of groceries. It hadn't been enough to simply get ingredients; she bought all the items that reminded her of home from cereal to body lotion and from chocolate bars to soy sauce. A random selection that Thane could barely understand, he just knew they were things that caused her to smile and for a moment he wished he could gift her his eidetic memory.

They got into the elevator together, the skyline now dark with night.

"Thank you for this Siha"

"For what? I didn't do anything."

"It's been some time since I've been able to go out and enjoy the sights. This place was once my home, but I was asleep to it. Thank you for showing it to me again Siha"

"I can't believe you still haven't told me what that means, and why you keep calling me that" she laughed "you could be calling me something really derogatory and I don't even know it."

"Never"

He couldn't let her think that, not even in jest. He stood before her taking her hand in his and bringing it to his lips. Her mouth was instantly dry and the bottom of her stomach dropped to the floor along with the random assortment of groceries as he kissed each knuckle and his lips grazed her fingertips. Her hands slipped to his face as his eyes bored into hers with a longing that reflected her own and she pulled him in. They kissed deeply, with a desperation he couldn't describe and his hands slipped to her waist so badly wanting to feel the skin underneath. He could feel her ragged breaths on his neck as hoisted her up against the wall and she wrapped the thighs he had long thought about around his waist. It was too much. He couldn't take it anymore. His impending death, the suicide mission, her position of authority; he just didn't care anymore as her lips trailed his neck. He could barely breathe. He couldn't deny her magnetism any longer; he couldn't dismiss it as irrational or a passing attraction. Sleep was something cast to the wayside, no longer a consideration. He had to have her, his resolve blissfully obliterated and he knew she wanted him just as much. He didn't care that he wasn't long for this world or whether.

His hands were everywhere, in her hair, gliding over her neck, at her waist on her thighs; she could hardly believe he had only two.

He thanked all the Gods he could name that no one else needed the elevator and that the room was not too far. He entered the room pass code faster than he thought possible and they burst into the room sending things crashing to the floor. They didn't stop to find out what, neither one wanting to separate from the other. Time melted away becoming nothing but an illusion.

She tore the jacket from his shoulders and he was grateful to be free of it. She pushed him to the floor straddling him and he watched her pull her top over her head, her skin devoid of pattern or stripe on full display. So alien was she; strange impossible curves and swells. He reached out to touch the cleft of her abdomen but she hauled his arms over his head pressing herself to him, leaving a trail of hot kisses down his neck. He succumbed to her as she undid the clasps of his vest agonisingly slowly.

The heat of her skin blazed against his own and her fingers drew fiery track marks from his chest to his abdomen. He lithely moved from under her pulling her upright as he pulled down her jeans and she kicked them off. The next thing she knew she was on her back, bare except for her underwear as he drew lines in her skin. Her ever sense heightened she could feel every scale each touch sending shivers down her spine as she gave in. She gave up any charade of resisting him. She wanted him bad. He told her in a language she couldn't understand, words that her translator couldn't filter that she was beautiful, that her voice dictated his dreams as she sighed beneath him. His palms brushed the lace of her underwear as his hands sought her hips and he slip his fingers between the lace and her silken skin wanting to see her without ornament, without covering as he sought to remove it.

Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzt!

The ringing of Shepard's omnitool cut through night startling them both bringing them back to the awful present. He wanted to grab it and throw it across the room shattering it into a thousand pieces but she reached for it touching the spinning holographic sphere that flashed angrily in the dark demanding her attention.

"Yes?!" she hissed down the line, her voice thick as she tried to slow her breathing.

"Shepard, I got a lead on Sidonis, you need to get back here!"

She was already half way across the room putting on the clothes they had discarded on the floor where he now lay alone.

"Ok, I'm making my way over"

"Meet me by the C-sec station on Zakera Ward"

Garrus. He should have asked her about Garrus.