"So, she actually went head-to-head with a Reaper on Rannoch?" Niali was staring at Kaidan with wide eyes while he casually perused the menu. His eyes were sweeping back and forth without pause and she leaned forward with more eagerness.
"Mhm," was his hummed response. He wasn't being forthcoming with details, which only fueled the asari to press him harder and she was practically crawling across the table.
"I mean, it was hard to miss when the whole damn fleet fired at once but I couldn't really see much from space so I missed all of the real action," she was speaking quickly, more to herself than to him. "And you got to see the whole thing?"
"Mhm." He was still staring at the menu and she blinked at him several times. He was distracted by more than just the food options and with a sigh of defeat, Niali dropped back down into her seat and pulled her hands back across the table. She hadn't even had a chance to admire the view from the Presidium yet; too preoccupied with pressing Kaidan for as much information as he was willing to give. So far, he hadn't been willing to give her much.
"I thought that part of the story had been made up," she mused quietly to herself, shaking her head as she tried to appreciate the spectacular view from where they sat. Lowering the menu away from his face, he pushed it to the side and clasped his hands together, regarding her with an intensity she didn't think she'd ever get used to. Niali could feel his eyes burning into the back of her skull and after a moment, she turned her head to meet his gaze.
"Have you ever had steak?" He asked bluntly. It was not the kind of question she had been expecting and she sputtered.
"I... uh... what? No?" Adjusting herself in her seat so her body was angled towards him, she wondered if his inquiry held any purpose. Considering her response, he nodded thoughtfully and turned his attention away from her.
"Thought so," he rounded his shoulders and fell silent. Opening her mouth to ask him how steak was relevant to their conversation, she closed it quickly and followed his gaze out towards the water. "Quite the view," he mused, breaking their silent reverie with a soft spoken observation.
"It is," she agreed. "I've never been to the Citadel. It―" It had become an open wound following the war with the Reapers and she rolled the words around on her tongue.
"Why do you do that?" He asked suddenly, catching her off-guard yet again.
"Do what?" The asari questioned, genuinely confused.
"Stop yourself like that. You've done it before," he was watching her again and she shivered beneath his gaze. "It's like you're afraid to say too much."
"That is... an astute observation, Major," Niali responded, carefully testing her words before letting them pass over her lips. "I am afraid. I'm afraid of many things. Being here is one of them. Not here, specifically. But here... in general," she gestured to the empty air around them before bringing her hands back together. "I know that doesn't make much sense and I don't expect it to. But even if I told you the truth, you wouldn't be believe me. I barely believe myself, to be honest. I just know that it's imperative that I get to the Crucible as soon as possible. I need... some help and the only place I'll find it is there."
"I think everyone is a little scared of being here right now," Kaidan said, shaking his head. "Everything is falling apart and no one really knows what to do."
"I..." That wasn't what she meant. Niali had never known war, just the aftermath, and so much had already been put back together by the time she was old enough to know better. Drumming her fingertips against the smooth surface of the table, she deliberated on giving him a snippet of the truth.
"When my ship was destroyed, we were testing the mass relay in the Exodus Cluster," she left out the part that they had been destroyed. "Something went horribly wrong. I thought I had everything perfect, but... it wasn't. Maybe it was the FTL drive being too hot during our approach, or maybe it was... I don't know. I thought we were prepared. Whatever happened, it did something to me and I... shouldn't be here." She paused. "I don't mean that I should have died with the rest of them. But maybe..." Maybe they weren't dead at all. She hadn't considered that before and Niali lapsed into thoughtful silence. What if all of them had been scattered across space and time just like her? Just the slightest inconsistency during their approach could have tossed them all in different directions. But what did that mean for getting them all back? If she managed to return to her own timeline, what of the rest of them? Would she be on board a ghost ship?
"Niali?" Kaidan's voice brought her back and she sucked in a deep breath.
"S-Sorry... I lost myself for a moment there. I just... I was just thinking," she cleared her throat and shifted in her seat once more. The chair was growing more and more uncomfortable and the carefully controlled climate of the Citadel was stifling beneath her collar. Things were growing more complex by the second and she could feel a tension headache forming somewhere between her eyes.
"As far as I'm concerned, if you're willing to help us win this thing, then you belong here as much as the rest of us do." He made it sound so simple and she wished that were so. They had defeated the Reapers once without her and there was nothing that her minor contribution would do to change that. Toying with the events of the past sounded like a terrible idea rife with even more terrible consequences and she pulled her hands into her lap.
"Thanks, Kaidan..." She smiled faintly.
"So with that being said, why don't you tell me a little about yourself? I don't know much about you," his curiosity sounded sincere and she pushed out a breath and wet her lips nervously.
"I'm not sure what there is to know, really. You already know the things that matter," she shrugged her shoulders.
"What about your parents? Family? Where did you grow up?" Ah, he wanted to delve into the personal questions ― the questions that she couldn't answer.
"My parents are both fighting in this war. But neither of them know that I am too." There, that was the truth and she looked out over the Presidium once more. "I don't think I can ever tell them, either."
"I'm sure they'd be proud of you," his voice was quieter than it had been before and Niali flicked her gaze back to him. "It takes a lot of courage to put the safety of the galaxy before your own."
"I have a lot to live up to. Knowing what they've done and seeing them in action now..." She trailed off and shook her head. She was in awe of both of them, more so than she ever thought possible.
"Seeing them now?" He quirked a brow in confusion and she smiled solemnly.
"Yeah," she breathed out the word.
"But I thought you said―"
"Whatever happened to that steak, hm?" Niali attempted to deflect and redirect, but he was immune to her tactics now and he easily brushed it off.
"You're avoiding the question," he pointed out, pinching his face in irritation. It made him look older and she resisted the urge to reach out and trace those deep lines that creased his forehead. She was looking into the eyes of a man that had seen endless bloodshed in his adult life, more than any one person should have to endure. He was as grizzled a veteran as Shepard and Niali reminded herself that Kaidan had also played a monumental role in stopping the Reapers. He was more than just another solider and she finally puffed out the breath she had been holding.
"I am," she agreed. What use was it to deny the obvious? He wasn't stupid. "What do you want me to tell you, Kaidan?" Her own agitation was bleeding through and he narrowed his eyes.
"The truth." He made such a heavy demand sound so easy and she rubbed at her forehead, shaking her head.
"I can't do that," Niali muttered. "Why can't you just... trust me?"
"You want me to trust you, blindly? You're talking in riddles and not giving me any straight answers. How do I know you're not a mole, trying to sabotage us from the inside? After what I've seen, it wouldn't be so far-fetched," he threw a hand up in exasperation.
"Please, if I wanted to sabotage you, I would've done so already. I've had plenty of opportunities. I want you to succeed as much as you do. If you fail, I won't even get the chance to exist and all of this worrying about getting back would've been for nothing," she snorted out the words and slumped back in her seat.
"Get back to where?" Brown eyes were narrowed suspiciously and she regret following him to the cafe just so she could pester him about what had happened on Rannoch.
"My own time," she mumbled warily.
"Your... own time?" He spoke the words slowly, trying to understand their meaning. She could see him considering them and after a pregnant pause, Niali nodded.
"Yes... I told you that you weren't going to believe me. So forget that I said anything and let's go back to talking about... anything else," she said hastily.
"You're talking about... time travel?" He wasn't going to let it go and she leaned forward to prop her elbows up on the table with a heavy sigh of defeat.
"Yes, time travel," she snapped. "You know, the concept of movement between certain points in time? Time travel. From my limited understanding, time travel from present to past is less likely to happen than travel from past to future. I never cared to study it much because it never mattered. To date, no one has successfully managed to jump through space and time. I have no idea how it happened or why. Maybe we jumped into a wormhole... that's what I need to figure out and I need someone with a bigger brain than mine to do that, hence needing to tap into one of the brilliant minds working on the Crucible."
An awkward and uncomfortable silence descended upon the table and Niali waited while he tried to decide whether or not to believe a single word that had just come out of her mouth.
"So you came from...?"
"The future. 2236, to be exact."
"That's fifty years," he looked taken aback and Niali nodded slowly. "So if you really are from... the future... God, I can't believe I'm even saying that." He laughed in disbelief. "If you are from the future, you know what happens to us? All of us?"
"I do," she was reluctant to answer. "But I can't tell you," Niali added quickly, going on before he could interject, "Because then you might try to change things and it could mess everything up. I might not know much about the physics of time dilation and time travel but I've read enough to know that fucking with the events of the past can cause serious problems in causality. Which, in short, means that things could end up turning out a lot worse."
"You really believe that you're from the future, don't you?" Kaidan asked skeptically.
"But you don't," Niali pointed out flatly.
"I believe that you believe."
"Which is a nice way of saying that you think I'm crazy," she concluded. As far as she was concerned, the conversation was over and the asari set her jaw before pushing herself to her feet.
"No, Niali. Wait. I just... it's a little bit much, don't you think? I mean, listen to what you're saying." The great Major Alenko was floundering and she was going to let him drown. She had taken a gamble on him and fallen short. Maybe she should've told EDI instead. But no, she wasn't going to waste her breath telling another soul, synthetic or organic. Not if all of them were going to look at her the way that Kaidan was looking at her now ― like she was one short fuse away from losing her mind.
"Enjoy that steak, Major," she gave him a curt nod of her head and resisted the urge to break into a full sprint back to the Normandy. If she was lucky, she might convince one of them to push her out of the airlock to rid herself of her humiliation. The sooner they dropped her off at the Crucible, the better. Maybe she needed to book passage on another vessel, but she selfishly wanted to spend as much time around her parents as she could before they were taken from her too.
