Chapter 35: Parallel Lives
Kasumi
The Normandy had been at Rough Tide for a week, hoping to catch Pero when he came back to his lodgings. It was en route for Earth now, to pick up their team, but wasn't due back for another day or so. Local authorities had asked Sam to speak at a law enforcement conference, and he'd done so, a sort of off-the-cuff question and answer session that had turned into a heated, but interesting debate on the ethics of having an entire agency in Council space that stood outside the law. Kasumi found the entire conversation slightly amusing; she'd stood outside the law for most of her adult life, for fun and for profit; now she stood outside of it to protect it. Either way, it was fascinating to hear these sober-minded, serious men and women discuss the reasons for the very rules she'd flouted for so long. She also didn't mind watching Sam's mind at work; he'd clearly spent a lot of time thinking about exactly these issues, coming to grips with them, and working them into the framework of his life. He also did a mean two-step when he needed to avoid details in some of his answers, and she found that very amusing, especially having played poker with him often enough to know his tells.
"At the risk of sounding like a hypocrite," Sam told the various agents in the room, "I tend to agree with you. It's definitely a system that can be easily misused and abused, that can lend itself to corruption and malfeasance. At its best, it allows Spectres to sidestep red tape and jurisdictional squabbling." He held up a hand as the room erupted into questions and shouted comments. "No, wait. I said, I agree with you. The red tape is often there to protect citizens and their rights. You don't want Spectres to be the first option in every case. That's what leads to police states, the abridgment of rights, tyranny. Local law enforcement is the first, best option in most cases. But when you have situations that involve multiple planets or multiple species, that's a case when the Spectres could probably be called in early, even if it's just in an advisory capacity. I'm only six months into this gig, and I have a wealth of experience now that I didn't have half a year ago." He shook his head, looking bemused, and Kasumi chuckled from her position at the back of the room, where she was watching. "Seriously, raise your hand if you have experience dealing with batarian arms dealers, salarian biological terrorists, asari commandos, or volus banking law."
A chuckle ran through the room. "Yeah, that's where I was six months ago. By all means, keep an eye on us. Be the folks who watch the watchers. I know I welcome it, and I'd put money on it that Commander Shepard does, too. But conversely, don't be afraid to use us, either. We're not a threat to your agencies. We're not glory hogs. God knows, most of us have special-ops backgrounds. You can't want to be the center of attention in that sort of job. Most of us are very used to working quietly and unseen, except for when something goes spectacularly wrong."
"So why's Shepard opened up so much to the media lately?" came one question.
Sam shrugged. "She mentioned, around when I started, that she reckoned people would be more comfortable with us if there was a li'l more transparency in our recruitment process, and if a few Spectres became more or less public faces."
"And you're one of them?"
Sam laughed. "Oh, good lord, I hope not. I've got the public relations background from my time with the Rangers, so I'd do my bit if told to do so, but Shepard hasn't told me anything official like that, yet."
Another voice, from the back of the room, close by Kasumi. "What's it like working with so many aliens? Don't the differences in training, concepts of justice, even psychologies make it difficult to present a united front?" The agent there looked about the same age as Sam, and Kasumi couldn't see his badge to identify his agency. "We've had a hard enough time integrating the North American agencies, let alone the global ones."
Sam nodded. "It can be a challenge. Fortunately, I just have to worry about working with my team and whoever's on it this week. Dealing with all seventy-nine Spectres and the support staff is above my pay-grade." He grinned. "On the job, everyone is generally clear on what a given mission is, and people with similar strategies for accomplishing it—or at least, people whose methods mesh well together—tend to get sent out together. Who gets sent depends on what sort of mission we're talking about, where it's located, the experience of the people involved. Same as here, really."
"Can you give us an example?"
"Hypothetically speaking, if you wanted to investigate azure dust smuggling off of Luisa, it might be a good idea to send one or two asari Spectres. Can interface with the locals, present a sympathetic face, gather information. If I were calling the shots, I'd send a turian with them, to make sure that everything stays. . . balanced."
"Not a human?"
Sam lifted his hands. "Would probably depend on the human, and how touchy the local population is about Thessia at the moment. There are places on asari worlds right now where we're pretty much persona non grata, and I don't expect that to change anytime soon."
Another hand went up. "You said this is all on the job. How about off the job? Is it difficult, interacting with so many aliens?" The female agent paused. "I think we all watched the speech from Shanxi. I thought it was a pretty interesting piece of stage management, myself." She smiled.
Kasumi chuckled a little under her breath. The questions so far had largely sounded naïve, but she had to remember, not a lot of aliens really came to Earth. Her comment two weeks ago, about how provincial humanity's homeworld was, had actually been fairly accurate. Oh, some volus came to Manhattan or Beijing or London for meetings with financiers, and all of Earth's tourist traps, from Tahiti to the Taj Majal, saw a certain amount of camera-wielding alien tourists—usually the type attracted to the idea of 'roughing it.' But law enforcement on Earth dealt, about 98% of the time, with other humans.
Sam paused, obviously thinking about the question, and Kasumi frowned now. He'd spent more time thinking than she'd expected, and she'd seen the flash of annoyance, quickly masked. But he was calm and sober when he replied, "There are cultural differences off the clock, sure. I have a rachni—love the dude, by the way—two or three turians, a geth, a krogan, and a handful of humans over to my house once a week for dinner, cards, and music. We work on it. Ain't no denying it. It takes work." He grinned a little. "Every marriage does, you know." More chuckles in the room. "As to Shanxi, I'm not sure what you meant jus' now 'bout stage management." He let the drawl get thicker for a minute. "I thought the commander made a damn good speech. Other than that, what you see is what you get, pretty much."
The meeting went on for a while longer, and Sam looked tired when he finally made his way to the back of the room. "Who was that one lady who asked about the stage management thing?" Kasumi asked him, quietly. "Got a look at her badge. Said SATBIA, but that's not an acronym I'm actually familiar with."
"New name, old organization," he muttered. "Systems Alliance, Terran Branch, Intelligence Agency. Used to be the GIA and the SATAO—Systems Alliance Threat Assessment Office. Probably the analyst half of the company. Let's get back to the hotel before any more of them ambush me with more questions. I'm beat."
Back at the hotel, however, they had a surprise waiting for them: Jack was in their rooms, warily watching, and being watched by Cohort. "This is a surprise," Kasumi told her, smiling.
"Yeah. Well, I got a temporary manager set up at the club who can manage the place in my absence, and he's scared enough of me not to try to cheat me or the bands, so I'm going with you when the Normandy shows up." Jack's expression was mostly challenging, but Kasumi was used to reading the vulnerability that the woman's abrasive manner masked.
Sam sighed, then looked down at her, telling Kasumi, "I'm the new kid here. I guess we should give the commander a call and see if she'll authorize it." From the very neutrality of his expression, the blank look on his face, Kasumi knew he thought this was a bad idea. To a certain extent, she could see his perspective. Jack was unstable. But she was also very powerful, and certainly motivated. . . and they were down at least two Spectres at the moment, both with certain biotic talents. Shepard didn't make an issue of her limited abilities, but Ylara's biotics were extensive and well-practiced.
Shepard gave the authorization, after a few moments' thought, and Kasumi watched as Jack directed a sort of triumphant glance in Sam's direction. This. . . is not going to go well, she thought to herself, a bit dismayed. He's already got a teenaged daughter to worry about, and Jack still has a lot of unresolved adolescence in her.
Jack
She wandered the ship like a restless ghost. Lots of changes from the old days. Crew quarters were still crew quarters, but some sections had been divided into tiny cubbies, largely larger than closets. These were for married couples, apparently; it was how turians accommodated such issues on their own ships. Glancing inside an empty one, Jack could see that luxurious, it wasn't; a bed that could be converted into a desk, two chairs, a work terminal, and a storage locker against each wall for uniforms and personal items. She stepped inside, and held out her hands; her fingertips almost touched both walls. Still, privacy was a luxury of its own kind, she knew. She'd built her own rooms at Abrade with the intention that no one would ever see them without her express consent. . . but so that she could always see out of them. It had made her feel safe.
The fact that her private rooms almost exactly replicated the cell in which she'd been, to put it laughably, 'raised,' had been something hadn't realized, herself, until a week ago, when she'd looked at it again, this time with Kasumi and the two Spectres in tow. I thought I left that fucking cell behind, and instead, I rebuilt it, brick by brick. Ah well. At least I know this time that the window only works one way. And it's by my own choice.
She prowled down to her old shadowy haunts in the lower decks. Much to her surprise, she ran into two members of the engineering team there. Even more surprisingly, she recognized them. "So, they let you two lab rats out of the engineering core?" Jack said, tipping her chin up, challengingly. They'd been sheltered, naïve kids when she'd last seen them—nevermind that they were probably her own age. Joined up with fucking Cerberus because they thought it was noble, of all the crazy-ass, self-deluded things to think. She got a better look at them, and paused. "Christ, does every human on this ship wear face-paint now?"
Gabby and Ken both looked startled; she'd always liked the fact that they were, frankly, easy to intimidate. Safe. Gabby pulled herself together faster, as usual. "Hello, Jack," she said. "We weren't told you'd be on board. We were looking into renovating this deck into additional crew quarters."
"But we can get out of your way," Ken added, quickly. A little too quickly. Yeah, I make you nervous, don't I? Jack smiled at him, made eye-contact, and got another surprise—after pulling back initially, Ken actually met her stare. Matched it. "Nice to have you back on board," he managed, nodded, and then stepped out of her way. Aww, they're holding hands. Isn't that just sweet.
"Did they throw in a pair to go with the facepaint, or did you grow 'em on your own?" Jack called after them. She could see Ken miss a stride, but keep walking; Gabby actually turned around to face her.
"Don't bother, Gabby, she's just trying to get a reaction," Ken said, quietly.
"You didn't answer my question," Jack said, folding her arms across her chest. "Does every fucking human wear paint now? It's starting to look like some old Western vid, or maybe fucking King Tut's tomb around here."
Gabby hadn't moved. She just stared at Jack now, and said, very quietly, "The Onorian family adopted us when their son died on the AEC attack on the Normandy. We wear it for Elianus and his wife, Cassa. And for their family."
"Well, shut my mouth," Jack said. Inside, she was telling herself Shut up. Shut up. They're harmless. They're less than harmless, they're practically a danger to themselves, shut up. But she couldn't stop herself from adding, "Guess you got the balls from the missus here, Ken-boy."
They left, and she paced the deck, stewing. Why can't I stop sometimes? Sometimes, she just wanted to hit people, and they'd been available. They weren't who she really wanted to hit, of course. They'd just been here. And of course, she'd been better for a while; the rage and the hate had had targets, good targets. Valid targets. And of course, there'd been Zeke Patterson, too. Jack didn't think of what she'd felt for the man as being love; love was a pansy-ass word. He'd had a knack, however, for making her feel safe.
Part of it had been the fact that he wasn't powerfully-built; just around 5'10", or 1.78 meters, he'd been wiry in build, all his strength concealed. He hadn't been a biotic, either. When she was able to think about it dispassionately, which wasn't often, she'd understood, that on some level, he didn't threaten her. Oh, the man was capable, no doubt, with a fierce intelligence and a rage at injustice that had rivaled her own hate for the world that humanity had built, but his was a focused anger, compressed into a point like a laser.
He had, also, at first, never laid so much as a finger on her, either.
It had actually gotten a little annoying after a while. Predictably, she'd taken the offensive.
Seriously, you don't even look at me. Is it that I'm just a weapon to you, that you load up and fire at the bad guys? Or is it just that you're gay?
He'd shrugged, and she remembered his reply now, The clothes and the tattoos and the shaved head all seem like a pretty clear message to me, Jack: Touch me and die; look at me, and it'll be a flesh wound.
Getting a different message yet, Zeke?
Look, you've been hurt before. A lot. I'm pretty sure I don't have the. . .
Qualifications? Last I checked, you came fully equipped. Now, years later, she hated herself for the flip tone, the harsh words. Words that had, essentially, equated him with vibrator. Maybe one with legs. Nothing more than a convenience.
The right, he'd told her, patiently, to get involved with you, if I can't concentrate on you, and just you.
What, there's someone else? You're married?
No, Jack. There's the work, and there's you.
And you're married to your work? It's okay. Being someone's mistress would actually be new for me. Sounds almost classy and high-dollar, compared to what I've—
Don't. You're worth a hell of a lot more than that. After a moment, he'd covered the momentary flash of emotion with a quick grin. Besides, with all these cultists we're chasing down, a mistress is entirely the wrong role to play, don't you think?
So, you want me to pretend to be something else, is that it?
You'll come up with something, I'm sure. He made it seem easy, effortless. As if changing roles, changing a mind-set, was no different from changing a set of clothes. For her, it had been harder. Harder to learn to act, to become someone else for a while. And yet, secretly, it had given her a sort of relief. She didn't have to be the iron-clad bitch all the time. She could, if only for a while, be someone else. Anyone else. He'd told her, late one night, Maybe someday, you can be all of them at once. Or just pick, at a whim.
I'm me, Zeke. Don't even think that you can turn me into someone I'm not.
He'd laughed then. I don't think that for a moment. But I'm not always convinced that you know who you are, moment to moment.
Shrink psychobabble bullshit.
Tears pricked at her eyes, and she rubbed at them, fiercely, hating the weakness. He was dead now, and someone was going to pay for it. "Maybe I'll go talk to Kasumi," she said out loud, to the walls of this place. It had always been too open to feel really safe down here, but it was dark and it was quiet, at least. She still had a powerful urge to hit someone, something, though. Kasumi. Yeah. Lost her damn mind, that one has. She was a thief, and a good one, and now she's pretty much letting herself get fucked over by Johnny Law. Jaworski bothered the hell out of Jack, and she couldn't put her finger on why. Zeke had been a cop—hell, a fed—once upon a time, of course. But Sam was different, in some indefinable way.
It wasn't something she knew on a conscious level. But Sam was a big man, and a lawman, and she'd been beaten, held down, and raped in prison, and it hadn't just been prisoners who'd done the deeds. But they'd all been big men, of whatever species. And even a few weeks ago, calmer, more stable, knowing that Zeke was alive and making the universe a better place, one hate group at a time, she might not have reacted to Jaworski as much. But now, all she knew was that he was dangerous, and probably dirty. Cops did blank face real good. Only killers like her got the dead eyes to go with it, the ones she'd gotten a look at when the good ol'boy mask had slipped once or twice. Of course, a lot of the old squad got the dead-eyed look once in a while, too. It'd been fine. Shepard and Garrus and hell, even Samara, were the good kind of crazy, after all.
Jack had been walking as she thought, and found herself already outside the port observation lounge. She tapped the door panel, and it slid open, noiselessly. Yeah, time to talk some sense into Kasumi, she decided. Her brain's gone soft.
She stepped inside, and realized two things at once. First, Kasumi wasn't here at the moment. Second, Sam was. His back was to the door, and he didn't seem to have heard the door open. Sloppy of you, Johnny. Then again, this was the Normandy. People did tend to let their guard down here. Not me though. Never me.
He leaned forward towards the terminal in the room, asking, "So, sweetie, anything else to tell me about?" This wasn't the good ol'boy voice, and it wasn't the hard rap of orders in the radio. This was a warmer tone by far, and for a wonder, it sounded real. So, who's Dara? Is he two-timing on Kasumi with some skank?
"Not too much, Dad. Gene mods are settling in okay, I think. Managed to run ten kilometers with Rel last weekend. . . well, I ran the first five, walked the next three, and threatened to crawl the last two." Young voice, that. Pleasant, low-toned, and clearly amused.
"That's my girl." Clear pride there, and Jack's hands clenched into fists, for some reason.
"Rel joked that he'd carry me on his shoulders. Good practice for running in armor with a full pack. We finished, eventually, but I'm too slow to let him get a real workout in. He went out again the next day while I was at the clinic."
"Sounds good. I do have a little bad news for you, though."
"Oh no. Who's sick? Grandma?"
"No one, hon. But you know, your uncle Hamilton had been taking care of Bandit for us, right? And Bandit was getting up there. . ."
A sigh, and that young voice sounded close to tears, but still pretty strong. "He was an old horse, Dad."
"Eighteen years. He took good care of you. Hamilton had to put him down three weeks ago."
Aww, little princess lost her pony. Too bad, spoiled brat. The thought was reflexive. Jack knew she shouldn't resent people automatically for having had love and companionship and human connection and material things—all of which her upbringing had deprived her—but it was kind of hard not to do so.
A pause, then the young voice on the comm replied, "He was blind in both eyes, Dad. I knew it wasn't going to be much longer." A sigh. "I probably should've been stronger, and taken him to the vet before we left, but I really thought he was going to be healthy a lot longer."
"I wouldn't have let you. I sold off all the other horses when your mom passed, since we couldn't take care of 'em all, but Bandit was what you had left of her." He cleared his throat. "While we're on the subject. . ."
"Of Mom passing?" A bit of a sniffle.
"Yeah, sort of. Well. . . I know hasn't even been a year yet. And the last thing I want to do is trample on your mother's memory, or hurt you, but. . ."
A slightly watery giggle. "You bought Kasumi a wedding knife? Please say it's a bowie knife, Dad!"
"Y'know, not all of us are doing our best to turn into turians," he growled, but it was clearly teasing. "I did not buy her a wedding knife. I did, however, buy her an engagement ring while we were in in D.C. I just wanted to know that you're okay with the idea of me proposing to her."
He's checking with his daughter? Eh, like I believe her objecting would stop him. And proposing. . . probably just another way of suckering Kasumi in. The thoughts had little force to them, though. She just didn't know what to do with the private face of Jaworski.
"No, I'm okay with it, Dad. She likes you. And the two of you . . . I don't know. You look right together, like you fit."
"Glad to hear I've got your blessing, then." Slightly ironic teasing.
"Wait, you say that like I should've held out for a trade here . . . just kidding, Dad."
"Smart-mouth," he told his daughter, with clear affection. "We'll be back in two days, assuming nothing blows up before we get there. Be good."
The comm channel closed, and he turned around, smiling, relaxed, and as open as Jack had seen him. That expression vanished when he saw her there, closed off like a wall. "You ever think of knocking?" Jaworski said, quietly, and with some control.
Jack stared at him, tried to stare him down. It didn't work. The pale blue eyes were too dead. That ever-present thread of fear pulsed in her, down deep, where she tried to hide it. "So, which of you is the real Samuel Jaworski, anyway? The good ol'boy cop, the hayseed hick, the loving boyfriend, the caring daddy, or the stone killer?"
Something flashed through his eyes then. Some trace of expression, there, then gone, so swiftly she couldn't identify it. "Little girl," he said then, quietly, "You don't know me. I don't know you." He spread his hands, as if to weigh each statement in one, then put them back on his knees. "But I also don't answer to you."
He turned away from her—turned his back!—and started going through his equipment, checking it. Jack felt the familiar rage; she'd been dismissed, and now she was being ignored. On the one hand, Jack didn't tolerate shit from anyone. On the other hand, she'd given him a lot of shit just now, and he hadn't blown up at her. Just. . . set her down. Shown her where the boundary was. A subtle sort of suggestion: you can go right up to that line right there, but no further.
So she hesitated in the door, not really knowing what to do, an unusual state of mind for her, watching as he, steadfastly ignoring her, cleaned his guns, checked his armor. She hadn't seen the knife before. It wasn't a prison shiv by any stretch of the imagination. Still in the doorway, she tried again. Poking, Prodding. But a little more quietly now. She didn't think she'd misjudged him, but she was feeling more cautious. "Some people might look at a knife like that, and think the guy was trying to compensate for something." Not as harsh or abrasive as she could have made her voice, she liked to think.
"Those people would probably not be the brightest bulbs in the chandelier, then. A bowie knife is a tool, and a damn good one. The length gives it the functionality of a machete in the field; you can chop your way through jungle with one of these, and still be able to decapitate someone after an hour of hacking through vines. The guard protects the fingers and the hand, the curved tip, you can use for splitting ropes or repairing stuff." His voice was clinical as he sharpened the knife, and applied oil to it before wiping it dry carefully with a soft cloth.
"It got a name?" She'd known plenty of people who'd named their weapons. One guy on Purgatory had named his shiv Lila, after an ex-girlfriend. Come to think of it, he'd been in prison for killing that girlfriend. Scared little punk-ass prick. He hadn't really belonged on Purgatory. Had mostly been locked up there because the girlfriend he'd gutted had been an ambassador's daughter, or some shit like that.
"No."
"Why not?" Lifted chin, faint challenge. Come on, big boy, tell me some real good story.
"Naming weapons is for people who think they have to show how billy-badass they are." Jaworski lifted those pale blue, killer eyes, and smiled. That smile made her blood run cold for a moment. "Little darlin', I ain't got nothin' to prove."
They're all real, she realized, after a moment. The good ol'boy cop, the hayseed hick, the loving boyfriend, the caring daddy, and the stone killer. "Fair enough," Jack said, after a moment. "Tell Kasumi I dropped by to say hi, okay?" Then she turned to walk away, resolving, firmly, to have nothing at all to do with the man again if she could help it.
Elijah
The Dunkirk arrived first, of the two ships that were out, currently, and Eli had rarely been so glad to see his step-father home again. He'd been on pins and needles for two-and-a-half weeks, and skipped handball practice to go home early, hoping to catch Lantar before his mom got home and could hear them talking. He already knew she'd seen what Siara had been doing in the courtyard at his birthday party; he'd heard chapter and verse on that, and nothing he said had really convinced his mom that it hadn't exactly been his idea. He was under no illusions that Lantar wouldn't already have heard something of this by text message, at the very least, either.
So when he walked into the house, and got a dark look and a headshake from his step-father at the kitchen table, Eli was prepared. He took a deep breath, and said, haltingly, the words Rel had given him. "You who are as a father to me, I request your hearing and your assistance as clan-leader."
The look of surprise and . . .was that delight on Lantar's face? Either way, it was almost worth the price of admission. Eli kicked himself mentally, and promised, internally, to work harder on his turian. "I will hear the your words, you who are as a son to me," was the reply, which Rel had told him to expect. Eli exhaled in relief.
"Thank you," he said, in English. "This is really private, Dad. I don't want Mom to hear it—not yet." Not ever, actually. "At least not till you've had a chance to help figure things out. Can we please go outside or someplace where we can talk privately?"
Lantar's frown had returned, and he gestured towards the stairs. "The attic's a lot warmer than outdoors," he replied, and Eli nodded. It was at least out of earshot, and the upstairs rooms, though dusty and used mostly for storage, weren't terribly creepy.
It took a lot of explaining. Eli explained how he'd told off Siara at the clinic in asari high-tongue, and how the girl had taken to following him everywhere after that. Her repeated insistences that he didn't interest her, except for Kella's memories. How he'd finally allowed her to share them.
"In the street?"
Eli winced. "The asari have different levels of sharing," he explained. "There's maieolo'rae, the little touch, which children use among each other, or mothers and children. Just thoughts, impressions, love. No touching, other than a hug, a kiss on the cheek. Then there's maieolo'saeo, the knowing touch. That's what Ylara used on me, where they just. . . exchange information, really. Impersonal. That's more or less what I was asking Siara to do. I was just. . . pissy about it." The admission was uncomfortable. "There's lots of other levels. Degrees of intimacy." He looked away for a moment. "What Siara keeps pushing for is maieolo'loa'kareo. Touching everywhere, full openness." That was really hard to say while maintaining eye-contact. "I keep telling her no, the most I can do, as my parents have taught me is. . . " he struggled here. It was hard to keep mixing thoughts, languages, concepts. Turian, human, asari. It all made his head hurt. "Right. Honorable. Whatever. The most I'd do was maieolo'rae'kiia. Small sharings, with, well, options for more." Eli took a deep breath. Lantar didn't say much. Just listened. Like a judge. Well, I did ask him to listen as clan-leader. I guess that's what a clan-leader does.
He explained his best understanding of her consistently inconsistent behavior, and then explained what he'd seen in her mind. The dark shadows, the fear, the sheets, the secrets. Halfway through the explanation, Lantar moved forward, slightly. It was a fast movement, a reflexive jerk, and Eli knew turian body-language well enough to read surprise, understanding, and anger there. The anger wasn't at him, though, and he sighed in relief. What he was saying made sense to Lantar, with all Lantar's years of experience as a cop, so maybe it wasn't just in his head. "I could be wrong," he said, near the end. "But could you. . . I don't know. Go to her mom and talk to her?"
"I will," Lantar said, and put a clawed hand on Eli's shoulder. "You've acted with honor, but you've been struggling with a burden not entirely yours. You could have told the school administrators. You could have told your mother."
Eli grimaced. "School officials would have wanted to know how I knew all this, and that's. . . not their business." He hitched his shoulders, uncomfortably. "And Mom wouldn't have understood. She didn't even listen when I told her I didn't actually want. . ." He sighed. "Okay, that's not entirely true." He flicked Lantar a guilty glance.
His father laughed. "You wouldn't be male if you didn't want, but your honor is strong enough to make you hold back. This is a good thing. But your mother doesn't entirely trust your honor yet."
Eli looked down. "Yeah, I know. I guess she sees my dad when she looks at me." He glanced up. "Him, not you, I mean."
"I think she sees her son when she looks at you." Lantar paused. "All beside the point for now. Just know that I'm proud of you, and that I'll be visiting Azala's house after dinner." He chuckled. "After I reassure your mother that I've missed her."
Eli hesitated. "You can tell my mom why you're going, you know," he said, worrying. "I don't want her to, well, take it the wrong way. I mean—"
"I know what you mean. She'll be fine."
Siara
There'd been a knock on the door after dinner, and Elijah's turian Spectre father had been there, all scales and facepaint and frightening, cold eyes. Siara had peered around the corner of the hall as her mother had answered the door, and then had pulled away, retreated to her room. He's here to tell her that I've been a bad girl, that I need to leave his son alone. She paced in her room, measuring out her anger in the length of her strides, trying for calm. She had been so ambivalent about the Spectres since coming to live on this base, five years ago. Siara always felt a sort of angry contempt for her scientist mother, which baffled her. She loved her mother, and honestly didn't know why she was angry with Azala. Azala was a pure scientist; gentle, reserved, and frighteningly intelligent. She could hold all the components of a complex genetic project in her mind, and just see how the sequences needed to move, in order to solve a problem. There was, however, always a sense in Siara's mind that her mother had, somehow, let her down.
If my mother had been a Spectre, I'd have been. . . What? Her mind never seemed to be able to complete that thought. There was a blank at the end of that sentence, like a school exercise. Happier? More content? Braver? Safer?
The voices were muffled, but she could hear agitation rising in her mother's voice. Hurt. Betrayal. Was that crying? Great. It's all my fault. Her mind paused in its racing. It always seemed to be her fault, somehow. Always something wrong, deep down inside of her. No wonder Kella never wanted to share. She pushed the thought aside.
Thump of the outer door opening, then closing again. Then her bedroom door opening. Her mother walked in, tears in her eyes, and put her arms around Siara, much to the girl's bewilderment. She started to pull away, then heard Azala's voice in her mind. Who did this to you? I saw that there was a difference in you, starting some ten years gone, but you held me off, you laughed, you only allowed the maieolo'rae, and I did not wish to ask why. Thought it was early onset of adolescence, differencing yourself from me, distancing yourself. But now I must know, my daughter, my little fair one. Open to me.
So much love, so much hurt, so much acceptance. It would be like bathing in a warm river to accept it, but then the dirt in her would muddy those waters. Siara's thoughts were confused, and she resisted.
So it's better to let the darkness spread to some poor human boy?
He has darkness in plenty of his own! They all do! Siara was angry now, and delved for the snatches of memory she'd pulled from Elijah's mind, throwing them at her mother, as a fighter ship drops chaff, to confuse an attacker's radar. How indiscriminate the mating urge in young human males is, she thought, spreading out the thoughts before Azala. How dark the desires, how deep the shame.
Flashes of Eli's desire for her, mixed with his confused longing for lost Kella. How he still looked at Dara, because, in the end, he was a teen-aged human boy, and Dara was human, and attractive, and her growing self-confidence was a beacon. He constantly drove those thoughts away, bottled them up, tried not to picture her, tried not to picture what she and Rellus must be doing. . . tried not to picture himself, biting her like a turian would. . . .tried to keep himself from wondering if Siara would be repelled if he bit her, too. . . .
Still the love, unconditional, accepting, beckoned to her. Offering to drown her, to baptize her, to cleanse her. Desperately, Siara flung other thoughts at her mother. Disdain, contempt for Dara. Everyone on base feeling so sorry for her, because she'd had to kill so young. The hovering psychologists around her, trying to make sure she'd be able to internalize the experience. So much concern, for one person, when she was smart and she was pretty and she was human and Kella and Elijah and even Rellus wanted to be around her. . . even her own mother liked the little human, gave her gifts.
Finding someone else of interest in no way detracts from my love for you! Siara recoiled from that thought, seeing how childish and petty her own thoughts were, and yet, still clinging to them. And no one shows concern for you? You didn't learn this contempt for other species from me, my daughter. Who taught you these things? My fair-sister, your second-mother?
Siara shied away from thoughts of her second-mother, feeling the dark tide rise inside her, despair, confusion. No, no, no, don't look, don't see. From her mother now, wordless hurt, confusion. For a xenobiologist like Azala, other species were to be cherished, enjoyed, appreciated in their incredible variety and inevitable foibles.
She bounced off that wall of thought, which denied her the luxury of self-pity, and, reflexively, dove into another stream of images. Blocking, for all she was worth. Rellus, schoolmate of five years now. Liked by everyone, calm for a turian, rarely reacting. Always looking past her, barbs rolling off his hide as if the scales really did armor him, somehow. Uncaring.
And would you have let him care? Too close now. Thoughts almost sounding like her own. Siara pulled away, but it was just so tempting to just. . . rest. To stop struggling. One last effort. Kella, fair-sister, never sharing. Secrets, talk, words, ideas, but never memories, never giving, never taking. . . she could have taken this away from me, but she wouldn't, she wouldn't!
And so you picked a human boy to take the pain away instead, but he wouldn't let you. And he was right, fair-daughter. Sharing memories like these with him would have left him with the same hurt as you have. And to have forced them on him would have been just as much a crime as what was done to you. She could feel her mother's rage now—it wasn't directed at her, but she shuddered back from it. Siara would never question again whether her mother loved her, or wanted to keep her safe.
And then the hurt places were being touched, and Siara just wept, putting her head on her mother's shoulder, as Azala's light made the dark places shrivel up inside of her at last. The hurts would always be there, of course; sharing didn't remove such things. But the burden was shared, and by someone who could handle it. Azala took the hurt and the guilt and the helplessness, and left her daughter feeling clean.
Lantar
He'd been expecting the knock on the door, and had stayed up late to be able to answer it. Ellie had stayed up with him, after he'd explained to her that Siara's mother was likely to drop by, late. "It's a private matter regarding her daughter," he'd told his wife. "But you can watch us from the other room if it'll set your mind at ease." Ellie didn't, he knew, really question his honor. But she had scars, and it cost him nothing to give her the power in such a circumstance.
She'd sighed. "I trust you, Lantar. But . . . I appreciate that you made the offer. I'll try to keep from grilling you about it later."
"I can give you some tips on interrogation methods," he offered, mildly. "Try to make sure to get a really bright light in the room, to shine in my eyes."
His wife made a scoffing sort of noise, and, when the knock had come at the door, had left to go to their room, leaving the light on for him.
Azala looked pale now, and she clenched and unclenched her hands periodically as he ushered her to the kitchen, where they could talk, for the moment, undisturbed. "I'm sorry to come here so late," she apologized.
"It's okay. Caelia's not really sleeping through the night yet. She'd due to start squawking. . . oh, in a half hour or so," Lantar told her, grimacing a bit. "Was my son correct?"
She sighed. "Yes." Azala sat down at the table, and he could see tears in her eyes again.
"Is Siara all right?"
"I left her sleeping. It will take her some time to assimilate what I gave her to try to help her. Probably many more such sessions." Azala looked tired. "We asari don't have 'counselors.' If we were on an asari colony, I could try to have to a priestess of the triune Goddess share with her, but I doubt they could do any more than what I have done. Perhaps the priestess' touch would be even more harmful, for she would be a stranger." Azala looked up at him now. "Please understand that she was reacting in desperation, and did not understand that she could have harmed your son by doing what she was doing."
Lantar blinked. He hadn't actually thought of this. "She could have?"
"Yes. Such memories as poisoned her, unresolved feelings of guilt and shame, would have been given to him, too. If it had been all at once, he might have developed some of her reactions to them, and might never even have known why, because the actual memories would have been buried in his subconscious. Though the events never happened to him, he would have. . . owned them." She sighed. "It's a difficult concept for a non-asari to grasp."
Lantar nodded. "All right." He paused. "So, what now?"
Her hands clenched again. "I'm not a powerful biotic. I can't hunt down my former fair-sister, Siara's second mother, and make her suffer as she deserves." Azala's face tightened. "In truth, I do not know if Tsia is even still alive. She could have been on Thessia before its destruction. She was. . . a traditionalist." She put her face in her hands, and her shoulders started to shake. "How did I not see it?" Azala whispered through her fingers.
"Most people don't," he told her, putting a hand on her shoulder. "They see a change in their kids, sure, but they don't know what it's about. By and large, the kids feel like they're at fault, guilty somehow, or are threatened with terrible punishments and shame if they do tell. You've both got a lot to deal with right now." He kept his voice sympathetic, but a little detached. His stints in C-Sec and B-Sec had never taken him on domestic calls like this, but he knew enough about the topic to know how to treat the issue. "Do you want me to run this up the chain a bit? I understand that the commander is on a first-name basis with an asari justicar. You just have to let us know which way to go. Justicar, or Spectre." He looked at her, and added, quietly, "If you send a Spectre, she'll probably be dead in very short order. The justicar is sworn to uphold asari law. She probably wouldn't kill the woman, unless Tsia resists, of course." Then all bets are off, if what Garrus has told me about the justicar is even remotely true.
He watched her eyes flicker for a moment. "The justicar, if she's not too busy. While I wish her nothing but ill—and I almost hope she resists arrest—I won't be responsible for her death, either." Azala wiped at her eyes, and stood to leave. At the door, she hesitated. "Tell your son. . . that I thank him. And you may tell your wife however much of this she needs to know."
Lantar grimaced. On the one hand, Ellie needed to know, so that she'd let off on Elijah for things he actually hadn't been responsible for. On the other hand, he was not going to tell his wife even one word of the potential threat to Elijah's mind that the girl had, however inadvertently, posed. Marriages foundered on secrets, it was true, but good marriages depended on people knowing what buttons not to push, too.
Shepard
The Dunkirk had arrived back on May 4; the Normandy arrived on May 7, late at night, as almost always seemed to happen. Shepard felt the mattress depress slightly, and her eyes opened in the darkness as she felt warm arms surround her. "I'm apparently," Garrus rasped into her ear, "under strict medical orders to keep you warm until Mordin can see you tomorrow." He nipped her neck. "Doesn't play on the nesting instincts at all."
She'd chuckled sleepily. "And you have plans for how to keep me warm?"
"Definitely. After all, it's only a matter of time before we won't be able to, for a while." A little harder nip, for emphasis.
Dawn, while growing later and later, as fall slipped inevitably into winter, came all too soon.
Sunday morning, she reported to her somewhat-annoyed physician at the clinic, and took a tongue-lashing from Mordin, rather similar to the one Abrams had already deployed on her. "Mordin, I honestly didn't feel any more or less cruddy that evening than any other night. Tired, vaguely sick. I'd like to know what, other than the grapefruit juice, caused it." She glanced at Dara, who was sitting in the corner, taking notes for Mordin. "Dara caught the temperature shift, and caught it early, so no harm done, right?"
Mordin had finished his scans, and nodded now, grudgingly. "Daniel did a good job adjusting the medications. No harm done, indeed." He blinked at her rapidly. "However, also not eating enough."
"Yeah, food has been tasting . . . odd. . . lately. Somewhat like metal filings."
Mordin frowned. "Abnormal. Tacilimus, anti-rejection medication, should not cause that. New immunosuppressant one of only a few variables not the same from last time. Might be interacting oddly with other medications. Will put you back on cyanolimus for a few weeks. Stronger medication. Will require going back to old precautions."
Shepard sighed. "I was really hoping to avoid some of that this time."
"Will see if it resolves issue. Then decide in two, three weeks. Need for nutrients much more vital." Mordin's tone was stern.
Dara looked up, waiting for a chance to ask the doctor something. When he nodded to her, she asked, "I'm trying to make sure I understand everything here. So, you suppress the human immune system, so that it can't attack the embryos, the same way it would attack a human baby with a blood Rh factor that's different from its mother's. . . "
"Correct."
"But that's dangerous, because of the risk of infections. Even a cold would be dangerous right now, right? Could progress into pneumonia, or worse?"
Mordin nodded.
"Okay, then you you raise the core temperature to allow the turian gastric and muscular systems to develop, but have to keep it low enough to keep the mother stable and the human nervous system in the embryos intact. . . "
"Yes."
"So the human mother is already in a fever continuously, and any exposure to any disease could hit her, very hard, unexpectedly, and might send her into a really dangerously high fever as a result of the infection." Dara grimaced, looking at Shepard, clearly applying it to herself, some years down the line. "I don't know how you manage to stay uninfected, especially with the twins. They're walking petrie dishes when they come home from daycare."
Shepard sighed. "Well, it hasn't been as bad, on the tacilimus. I've been making a point of not kissing the twins until they've had their baths. Remember the box of gloves I keep around the house?"
Dara nodded. "I go through about one of those a week at the moment. They usually don't carry too many bugs home to me, but we are coming up on flu season." She sighed, hating the thought. "But now that I'm going back on the cyanolimus, I'll probably wind up wearing a mask."
"Was going to mention that," Mordin told her, and flipped a light blue mask at her by its string. "Start now. Reinstall decontamination unit at door of house. May also wish to curtail social activities, meetings, etcetera."
"Curtail or limit?"
He stared at her for a moment. "Limit, for now. Keep among Spectres who have been through decontamination. Dara, working in clinic, safe. Father, Spectre, safe. Others in valley? Either decontamination, or no access. Same as last time."
Yeah, was afraid of that. Either I make everyone else do the decontamination, and inconvenience them, or I lock myself in my house, and inconvenience only myself. Oh, well. Cabin fever is all in the head, anyway.
Dara looked down at her datapad, and shook her head. "I don't know whether it would be harder or easier to do this for another species. If it were a quarian mother, you practically wouldn't have to suppress the immune system to protect the baby. You'd almost have to boost the immune response for them, wouldn't you?"
Mordin frowned. "To a certain extent. Not so far as to threaten embryos, but difficult to protect mother's system any other way. Data limited. Only current hybridization efforts with quarians has been with other dextro species, turians. Still dangerous. But less so. Only case study, turian mother, quarian father."
Dara sat back, and Shepard watched the girl's thoughts flicker behind her eyes. There was a good mind there, and it was a pleasure to watch. "I wonder," Dara said slowly, "considering the dangers that even a quarian-quarian pregnancy currently poses for the parents. . . the suit linking, the danger of infection, the mother's immune system during pregnancy. . . why more of them haven't considered surrogacy?" She waved a hand, clearly pooh-poohing her own idea. "Probably not economically feasible for them. You have to pay the mother for her time and the use of her body, after all. . ."
Mordin looked at the girl, "Socially, risky. Quarians only permitted one child per couple for centuries. Surrogate mothers might feel emotional attachment, might want to keep child. Also, risks making a caste of womb-mothers, only used for such."
Dara looked up, blinked, and said, "Oh, I wasn't talking about quarian surrogates. I was thinking more along the lines of turian surrogates. No dextro-levo issues. Same nutritional requirements for both species. The only real issues would be the foreign proteins, so, same anti-rejection medications. Similar body temperature issues."
Shepard was amused. The girl, unconsciously, perhaps, tended to assume the same linguistic patterns as her mentor when she talked about medicine. It was a linguistic tendency similar to assimilation, wherein people in a social hierarchy tended to defer their pronunciation of words to how those of higher social rank tended to pronounce them.
Mordin smiled. "Sounds like excellent first research paper topic."
Dara shrugged. "I'm sure someone's already thought of this."
"Not to my knowledge. Start by canvassing xenobiological and xenoobstetrics journals. Go on. Always should be learning." He shooed the wide-eyed girl out of the room, and Lilu chuckled again. Now that was the 'oh shit' look of someone who has suddenly wound up with a whole lot more work dumped on her head . . . .
"Right, so, mask and gloves in public, cyanolimus four times a day, and decontamination procedures." Shepard sighed. "Anything else before I go lock myself in my house for the next eight months?" She was sixty-four days into the cycle at this point, which could last ten or eleven months, depending greatly on the hormonal balances that the doctors tried to institute and maintain in the body.
"Nothing more. Except reminder to eat more."
"Yes, sir."
Jack, surprisingly, was the first visitor to come through the new decontamination chamber. "Shit, you are paranoid about the germs, aren't you?" came a familiar voice. "Developing a little OCD in your old age, Shepard?"
Shepard looked up from a stack of datapads in bemusement, and the twins dropped what they were doing, went to go hide behind a chair, and just stared at the woman. "Kaius, Amara, don't stare. It's rude. Come here." Kaius trundled out of hiding first, followed, after a long moment, by his slightly shyer sister. Both now sat on the couch beside her, out in the open. And still staring, just a bit. "Sorry, Jack. Anyone new gets similar treatment from them."
Jack shook her head. "You're crazy, Shepard. I've always known it, but now I think everyone's got living proof." She shuddered.
Shepard frowned. "What, having hybrid kids?"
"No, having kids at all." Jack looked at the twins. "Don't get me wrong, kiddos. You're cute and all that. But. . . couldn't pay me enough." She pulled her lips down.
Shepard nodded. Yeah, as a person with heavy abuse in your past, you're probably afraid you'll pass it on. Valid concern. Shepard waved at a chair. "Have a seat. I read Sam and Kasumi's report already, so I know some of the details." She paused. "And here I thought I'd found you a nice, stable place out at the Ascension Project," she added, ruefully. I guess it just goes to show that you can't make people grow at anything other than their own pace.
"It was okay. The kids actually didn't piss me off too much. It was the other teachers I couldn't stand." Jack slumped down in the chair, turning inwards. "Found my way to Earth. Met Zeke." Her eyes flicked upwards, and Shepard could read the brief flash of vulnerability there. "When you go after the salarian pieces of. . ." Jack glanced at the two children, and actually controlled her mouth, "work who killed him, I want to be there."
Shepard shooed the twins away. "Go play. Mama has to talk work now."
"Can we have the lanura out of its cage?" That was Amara, quietly.
"If you promise to be careful with her."
"Promise!"
Shepard got up and let the little winged lizard out of its cage; it hopped down to her shoulder, peered at the twins, and leaped down to the back of a chair, preening a bit in the morning sunlight. Both children immediately moved towards it, fascinated. Urz, dozing behind that same chair, opened the blue globes of his eyes, grumbled, and moved out of the way. The varren knew damned well that very shortly, the little winged creature would be flying all over the rooms of the living space, and the twins would be running pell-mell behind it. Urz wanted nothing to do with this, and wandered over to sit at Shepard's feet, instead.
Jack shook her head. "You've got a hell of a menagerie, Shepard."
Lilitu grinned, and sat back down, scratching Urz near one of his earholes. Now, she returned to Jack's earlier statement. "I understand why you want to be there for the Lystheni take-down. I got the impression that you and Zeke were close. I don't have a problem with that. And goodness knows, we'll probably need every biotic we can field, from the sound of things. The Lystheni seem to be experimenting heavily with introducing biotics into their genome." She hesitated. "My main concern is this: will you be okay with taking orders from Garrus, Lantar, or Sam?" Shepard paused. "Wait, you haven't met Lantar Sidonis yet, have you?"
Jack frowned. "Sidonis. The name sounds familiar. Wasn't that the guy that Garrus wanted to kill, for having betrayed him?"
"Yeah. He's trustworthy. Was tortured almost to death for the information, left to die in the gutter in Omega." Shepard shrugged. "Garrus takes the kids over to play with Lantar's little hybrid girl all the time."
The tattooed woman snorted. "Is there anyone still making human babies around here?"
Shepard grinned. "A few."
Jack stood up, and started to pace. "Garrus, yeah, sure. Stick up his. . . rear. . ." another glance at the kids for that, "and all, he's the good kind of crazy. You say he trusts this Lantar guy, fine. But Sam Jaworski? Kasumi's boyfriend?" She turned her head away sharply. "I don't like him. Don't trust him, either."
"He's never been a prison guard," Shepard told her, quietly.
She could see the younger woman breathing fast, in little pants. "I know that!" Jack told her, and her lips compressed into a thin line. One of these days, Jack, you're going to have to progress to the next of Eriksen's crises. You can't stay stuck in the same stage forever. You had trouble with forming an identity due to role confusion and all the abuse, so now you're just as stuck on the intimacy vs. isolation stage. And so now, people with strong, stable identities confuse you, threaten you, just as much intimacy scares you and overwhelms you. Zeke Patterson must have been a remarkable man, to be able to handle Jack and all the baggage in her train.
Lilitu understood all that, but damned if she knew what to do with that knowledge. She'd tried to jumpstart the process by throwing Jack into a project that required her to be an adult, to pass things on to the next generation; a classic 'generativity' role. Apparently, it hadn't worked. Lilu sighed. "I can't promise that you won't wind up on his team. I'll try to figure something out, but if push comes to shove, either you follow his orders, or you stay on the ground here. Simple as that." Her expression wasn't without sympathy, but reality was reality.
Another fast, hostile glance. "Why their orders? Why not yours?"
Shepard laughed. "The decontamination chamber isn't just for making sure everyone smells nice, Jack. I'm pregnant again, and the meds I'm on currently aren't making my immune system any happier. Definitely not heading into a firefight if I can avoid it." She shrugged. "I might be on the Normandy, if we can track 'em down before I wind up confined to bed rest again, but other than that, well, there's a reason a good commander learns how to delegate."
Jack just stared at her. "Okay, you're definitely crazier than I am. And that's really saying something, y'know?"
Shepard laughed again. "Go to his house this afternoon. Get to know the teams, and their families, okay? And Jack?" She paused, waiting for the younger woman to make eye contact. "Play nice. You don't have to stay long. Just get a feel for them, okay?"
Jack nodded, reluctantly, and then walked out, muttering to herself.
Shepard's next visitor was Lantar, who knocked at their door late Sunday afternoon. "Sorry to intrude," the turian said after Garrus let him in. Shepard reflected in amusement that he always seemed somehow burly or stocky to her; he didn't have the same height as most other turians, but was still taller than, say, Jaworski, by an inch or so, but he simply bulked larger in the arms, chest, and shoulders than Garrus or Livanus. Helpful for schlepping around rocket launchers, she thought, momentarily.
"Not a problem," Garrus told him, sitting back down on the sofa, and returning her feet to their position in his lap. "Just sort of watching something mindless on the extranet, anyway."
Lilu grimaced. "Can't even go over to Sam's to see the rest of the teams before tomorrow's meetings." She caught Garrus' look. "No, I'll be using the comm system to listen. You can run the meeting in person."
Lantar made a face. "Immune system?"
She sighed. "Yeah. Back on cyanolimus for the moment."
"Ellie's been talking about trying again with the new meds. I told her to hold off, and now I'm glad I did." He shook his head. "Not what I'm here for, though. Two things. First, did you get that proposal that Kapur and I wanted to float about Aphras and Tosal Nym?"
Garrus looked up and grinned. "Yeah, we did. It's an interesting idea."
Shepard nodded. "I tossed it to the geologists and climatologists and xenobiologists down in the valley on Friday. Told them it was something to talk over among themselves, and come up with some ideas I could take to Anderson and Odacaen. They're up to their eyeballs in the Mindoir project, but they seemed. . . enthusiastic, to say the least." She chuckled. "When you're stuck doing the detail work on one project, it's always a relieve to do big picture work on something else for a while. Told me they'd have some broad, general ideas ready in a month. The biggest problem they saw was that burning up comets in the atmosphere for their water would thicken the atmospheres of the planets as well, and they're already pretty solid. They said they'd recommend mining ice from the rings of one of the system's gas giants and trying to land the pieces gently. Less dust than from an impact event, less destruction of any remaining items of archaeological interest, and so on."
"And the archaeological impact?"
She shrugged. "We don't have anyone here who can do that kind of assessment, but the geologists commented that once you get an active hydrosphere going, the water's just going to, largely, follow the old riverbeds and watersheds. They might have to rig some sort of system of dikes and berms around where the heaviest craters are, since those are probably where the old cities were largely located. Keeping water out of those will protect the archaeological sites, more than likely. It's an interesting puzzle. And maybe one the Alliance and the Hierarchy will go for."
"How'd you come up with the idea?" Garrus asked.
Lantar shrugged. "Tossing ideas around with the captain of the Dunkirk. Bored, mostly, but. . . it's kind of nice to be able to think about building something, you know? We spend a lot of time taking things apart around here." He sighed. "And, speaking of which, that's my second reason for being here."
It didn't take long to explain. Shepard frowned, darkly, and took her feet off Garrus's lap. "I'll call Samara now," she said, starting for the comm terminal. "She's busy hunting down matriarchs, but I suspect she'll make a detour for this. She's lost all her daughters. I think she'll be happy to help someone else's child." If someone had done this for Jack, years ago, maybe she wouldn't still have so much of the caged animal in her. "Is there anything else we can do? I don't know if I should ask the girl's mother personally, but I can call Rishayla on Bastion and get a priestess out to Mindoir for Siara, if she thinks it will help. Might not be able to get clearance for her, but a quick trip to Odessa isn't out of the question."
Lantar frowned. "I'll mention it. That would fit in nicely, actually. Half the school is scheduled to go to Odessa shortly, anyway."
Shepard blinked. "Not that I have any reason to keep track of this, but why? Field trip?"
Lantar shook his head, looking resigned. "Handball team, the all-species school against an all-human school. I couldn't get the only human son in the galaxy who's interested in gladiatorial fighting. I had to get the one who's the main goalkeeper for the school handball team." He snorted. "I'm going, of course. Jaworski said, schedule permitting, he'd take Sky with us and subject him to some human opera. Also said something about investing in ear plugs for himself."
Shepard snorted a bit, and placed the call to Samara. The justicar took Tsia's name, and, with a look of cold, intent concentration, assured Shepard, "Two of my current targets have actually shown wisdom, and turned themselves in. This provides me a day or two to track down this woman. My code permits this. Thank you for allowing me to be of assistance in this matter."
Rellus
It had snowed in the valley overnight, making his Sunday run much less enjoyable than usual. He didn't want Dara to feel bad, so on their Saturday runs, he kept to her ten kilometer limit, and dawdled with her, teasing, simply enjoying her company. Her endurance had much improved after the treatments, but she still got out of breath and tired close to the end, as she worked to improve her conditioning. Rel, of course, had been working on his conditioning for a year or more already, gradually increasing the length of his daily runs. Of course, as a turian, he had also more or less been evolved to run, to hunt, in exactly this way. Sprint or the long chase; it was all about the body design.
So, Sundays, when Dara was at the clinic, Rel pushed himself. Forty-two kilometers. Close to twenty-six miles, or the length of a human marathon. A decent human runner could manage a mile in four minutes, but couldn't sustain it. The current record for a non-genetically modified human runner, in a marathon event, still hovered right at the two hour mark; this meant that they averaged roughly 13 miles per hour, or 20 kilometers per hour. The genetically modified could expect to take a fifteen minutes of that time, and not suffer the cardiac problems sometimes encountered by non-gene-modded humans.
A turian in decent shape could expect to complete it in a little over an hour, averaging 30 kilometers per hour, or 18 miles per hour. This was his endurance pace. At a sprint, the human goal of the 'perfect four minute mile' seemed a little laughable to him, since he halved that time, easily. Admittedly, Rellus usually needed to eat after his marathon runs; his body firmly informed him, every time, that if he was commit such resources to a hunt, that it had better be a successful one, and one that involved a great deal of protein.
So, this morning, he ran, crunching through the snow, feeling the cold burn his lungs, seep into his toes. He could have done this on a treadmill, of course, but it never gave him the feeling of accomplishment that seeing actual scenery pass by did. He did let his mind wander, though, on these long runs. Let himself think about the future, or the recent past. Theoretically, he could have used the time to listen to a book or something on an earpiece, but there was enough time already spent on duty in his life. It was nice just to let his mind wander where it willed. To the night before, when he and Dara had spent Saturday evening at Aunt Lilu's, sitting on the floor, actually playing extranet games, which had been a nice change of pace. His reflexes were better, but her little fingers—one more per hand, at that—were nimble and skilled. "Unfair natural advantage," he'd told her at one point. "You should have to tape the last two together."
"Practice and skill," she'd retorted, grinning. "I play piano three nights a week, amatus. Dr. Solus says I should pick surgery as my specialization." She'd wiggled her fingers at him, and he'd caught her hand to mock-bite at them.
The twins had been in bed, Aunt Lilu had been in another room, working, and it had been just them, out in the living area, just warm, happy companionship, good-natured rivalry, and he'd felt nothing but contentment. He was saving little moments like this in his mind, storing their warmth away. Because, in fifty-five days now, it was all going to be gone, at least for a while.
He rounded the last corner, and ran up to his parents' door, breathing a little hard at last. Inside, the heat hit him like a blast furnace; his body had adapted to the outdoor environment by ramping up his metabolism, making him almost fever-warm by turian standards, and going from just above freezing outdoors to something like 26º C/ 80ºF indoors was a shock. He didn't sweat, of course; the only reason to shower after a run like that would be to soothe his muscles, or to help adjust his body temperature. For the moment, however, food was a much more urgent concern. His hands were starting to shake a little.
His mother had left a talashae roast out for him on the counter, knowing his routine. It was cold now, but he didn't care. It even had a thick, marrow-bearing bone in it, the mere sight of which made Rel want to start drooling. Wouldn't be so bad, if it hadn't been for the run and the cold combined, he thought, and started cutting into the roast with a knife, thick slices, resisting the impulse to just pick the damn thing up and tear.
As Rel was simply trying to get enough protein in his body to stop it from complaining at him, there came a knock at the front door. "I'll get it," Serana called from the other side of the house. Huh. Odd hour of the morning for a visitor. Probably one of Dad's coworkers. Where did Mom put the cracking hammer, anyway—oh, there it is. He hefted the heavy hammer, and took a couple of solid whacks at the bone, which he'd now separated from the rest of the roast. The marrow simply smelled and looked too good right now, and his body urgently needed its nutrients.
He'd just picked up the first shard of bone and started to crunch down, when the kitchen door opened, and Serana said, "Dara's dad is here, Rel. He wants to talk to you." His little sister, cheerfully oblivious, left the door open as she retreated back to her own room, leaving Rel there, with greasy fingers and face, chewing on bone, as Dara's father stared at him, obviously nonplussed. S'kak, Rel thought. The only way this could look worse to him is if I'd opened my mandibles all the way and was actually cracking down on the bone that way, raw gobbets of flesh still hanging off of it. He set the hammer back down on the counter, and turned to wipe his hands and face off, trying to finish chewing as quickly as possible. We're a predator species, he thought to himself, a little defiantly. Maybe it's something better left undisguised.
Swallowing, he turned around again. "Good morning," Rel said, as politely as possible. "Sorry about this. When I do a forty kilometer run, I really need to eat afterwards. Do you mind if I continue?" He gestured to a nearby chair. "I can get you something to eat or drink, if you like. My mom's keeping at least something levo around here for Dara now."
"Nah, that's okay," Jaworski said, coming into the kitchen, closing the door, and sitting down. "Just wanted to talk to you for a bit."
That doesn't sound good. Rellus debated between bone and meat, and settled for meat; no sense in scaring Dara's father any more than he already had.
Jaworski cleared his throat. "I had a whole speech all prepared here, and now I can't even think of how it was supposed to start." He gestured at the roast. "It's disconcerting." The human met his eyes for a moment. "Hard not to see those teeth and think of how badly you could hurt my girl, you know?" Blunt honesty.
Rel could appreciate that, and the concern was a real one. He nodded. "There have been. . . incidents of that," he said, quietly. "My uncle and Dr. Solus were careful to let me know that even as far back as when the asari and turians first met, there have definitely been. . . incidents. Not well-publicized. Mostly because the turians in question usually committed suicide within minutes of realizing what they'd done." Rel found that his appetite had waned quite a bit. "I've seen the pictures." He looked up at Jaworski now. "I suspect that has quite a bit to do with how my uncle and Lantar wrote the contract." He knew how uncomfortable even mentioning the damn thing made Dara's father, and for the moment, he didn't care. Maybe if the man understood why it was so important. . . . "I tend to think they wanted to give us both time to learn each other. And how to control . . . . some of the instincts." Rel's tone became extremely diffident.
With an adult turian, this would have been a simple conversation. In fact, if it ever came up, he planned to thank his uncle for the contract, in spite of its many frustrations, because he knew that both Garrus and Lantar had been with turian females long before taking human mates. They had known, going into it, exactly what instinct would demand, and what they'd need to control. Rel, as a relative neophyte, hadn't had that knowledge. If he hadn't been able to settle for just marking Dara that first day in their allora meadow, months ago now, Rel really didn't like to think of where that afternoon would have gone. It could have been wonderful. It could have also hurt her very badly. He didn't think he'd have bitten her throat; he'd been so careful to keep away. But still, he could have hurt her, and she might never have trusted him again. But there was no real way to say that to Dara's father.
Sam sighed. "I think I understand." He waved it aside. "Not really what I came over here for, anyway." He dug around in a pocket, and produced a small box. "This was my grandmother's, Dara's great-grandmother's. I gave it to my wife, and now, I'd like for you to give it to Dara."
Rellus looked at the box dubiously, then wiped his fingers again and flicked the tiny thing open. Inside was a very small ring, meant for an impossibly small human hand, set with a square-cut diamond; the ring itself looked to be platinum, shaped into elaborate filigree. "It's pretty old-fashioned. I'd recommend getting it re-set." Jaworski shrugged. "Get her a different stone or something for the old setting; she can't possibly wear the old one day in and day out. This is the engagement ring. You give her this one before you get married. You give her a plain, matching band when you get married, okay? She'll give you one to wear in exchange."
Rellus looked up at him, not having a clue of what to say. Jaworski grinned at him. "Can't all be turian, son. Not everything in life is about knives." The human paused. "Now, about the when and the where. You were saying when you get back. That's fine. Gives you two a chance to re-evaluate if this is what you really want, with a little separation in between. Not to mention, boot camp tends to change people a bit." Jaworski sat back in his chair. "You two need to discuss how you want this done. There's a chaplain on base for the humans, apparently. My Baptist granny may roll over in her grave, but if a Jewish chaplain can see his way free to doing a fairly decent ecumenical service, the human half would be taken care of, right?"
This was all going a little fast for Rellus. He felt as if he'd been left somewhere, three conversational turns ago, blinking in the dust. "I thought you didn't . . . you changed your mind?" he finally managed.
"Already had, mostly. Trip home kind of clarified things for me, though." Jaworski's grin was almost predatory. "Besides, if you two weren't serious, me changing the timetable surely would throw you for a loop, now wouldn't it?"
Rel's stomach reminded him now, that it still needed to be fed. There were things that were instinct-level, and couldn't be denied. Run, hunt, eat, drag remains of carcass to mate, let her feed, mate, nest, rest, and do it all over again when the carcass was fully devoured. It was a little primitive, but the cycle was a little difficult to deny. So Rellus just grinned back at the human, and popped a piece of bone and marrow into his mouth. "It would, but it won't," he told Jaworski after a few moments. "Is that thing really going to fit on her finger?" he asked, after a moment.
"Probably a little too big for her, actually. Her mom's hands were bigger." Jaworski actually laughed at Rel's expression. "I hear tell that half your school is heading to Odessa soon anyway, right?"
The turian boy grimaced. "We weren't planning on going with them. I used to play handball, but it's getting a little out of control this year."
Sam chuckled. "Probably a good time for you to get it re-set, though, and sized for her, properly. She'll have plenty of time while you're gone to find a dress."
Rell shook his head. "Humans complicate things, don't they?"
"Eh, it's not being human that complicates it, so much as Dara being a female of the species. Trust me, she will want a nice dress to get married in. It'll dawn on her the instant she realizes people will be taking pictures."
It was the first time, Rellus realized, that he'd shared a laugh with his prospective father-in-law.