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Hours later, sleep continued to elude Shepard. The Collectors' Harbinger calling her name, threatening her personally, had bothered her more than she wanted to admit. The Illusive Man setting a trap for her, endangering her team, made her angry, made her question everything she'd done since she was revived. Had Kaidan been right all along? Should she have turned her back on Cerberus? No one else was doing anything about the Collectors, but she couldn't work with someone who lied to her or kept things from her, not and be able to do her job properly and keep the people who were counting on her safe.

Eventually she got up, trying to read, but the book was stupid, a fictionalized retelling of things she had actually lived through, getting many of the details very badly wrong. She tossed it aside and paced the cabin, trying to watch the fish but unable to find peace in them tonight.

The walls began to feel as though they were closing in on her. She needed space, and light, and the vast expanse of the stars spread out in front of her. Throwing on her uniform, she left her quarters and took the elevator down to the port observation deck.

Thane was there, sitting on a bench looking out at the galaxy with his arms looped casually around his knees. He turned around as the door opened and nodded to her. "I wondered if you might find your way down here."

"Were you waiting for me?" There was something pleasing in the idea, something comforting in the the thought that he had been thinking of her, that he had predicted she might need company.

"Yes. Although not entirely altruistically, I have to admit." He held up a hand apologetically.

For a moment, Shepard could nearly feel those lithe, strong fingers touching her, moving up her thigh, intimately, and she turned away, certain that she was blushing, not sure where the thought had come from.

"Shepard?"

"I'm sorry. I'm … unsettled."

"I can imagine you must be."

"My quarters seemed very small."

"I can certainly see that, after what happened on the Collector ship. The life support bay seemed small as well." He shifted on the seat to make room for her. Only once she was sitting with him, both of them looking out at the stars, did she realize how close they were to one another. It was … stirring, to be here with this alien, this unusual man, but it was also comfortable. She wanted to rest her head on his shoulder and listen to his voice rumble in his chest, but that was entirely out of line.

"I'm sorry. You said there was something you wanted to talk about and here I am focused on my own issues."

"You have every right." He looked at her intently. "You speak to everyone else about their troubles, solve them for them if you can. To whom do you speak about your own?"

"Oh. Well … I don't usually have any."

"Everyone has troubles occasionally."

"Not Commander Shepard." She smiled to take the bitterness out of the words. "I don't really know where the Commander's troubles end and mine begin, and hers are easier to deal with."

"You see yourself as two separate people?"

"Sometimes." She nudged his shoulder with her own. "Why do I get the feeling you're asking me questions in order to avoid telling me what you wanted to talk to me about?"

Thane gave a rueful smile. "You are quite perceptive. Now that you're here … it seems more difficult to discuss."

"Well, I'm not going anywhere. Take it at your own pace."

"Thank you." He looked out at the stars, collecting himself. "I fear I have already taken things at my own pace for far too long, sadly. And now my mortality has me … dwelling on things. Do you find that, now that you've experienced it?"

Shepard shook her head. "As far as I can tell, my mortality has had a greater impact on everyone else than it had on me. I was just asleep for two years; everyone else had to live it. And don't think I don't notice the distraction."

He smiled, but without humor, acknowledging that she had read him correctly. "I … had a family, once. I have a son, still. His name is Kolyat. I haven't seen him for a very long time."

That she had not expected. She wondered what it would be like to have a son, a child, someone specific depending on you rather than the shadowy faceless denizens of a galaxy. She thought it must be more rewarding. But not if you were estranged, she imagined. "Did something happen, that you haven't seen him?" She wondered about his son's mother. Had he loved her? He must have. What had she been like?

"Something, and nothing. I abandoned them." He glanced at her sideways as he said it, as if to gauge her reaction, so she held it back, waiting for more detail. "Not all at once," he continued. "Nothing dramatic like sneaking out at night, no final argument or slammed door. I just … did my job. I hunted and killed across the galaxy. 'Away on business,' my wife would tell people. I was always away on business."

"She must have known who or what you were when you married her."

"She did. I believe she thought when we were married, when our son was born, things would change." He looked down at his feet, drawn up on the bench cushion. "They never did."

"How long has it been since you saw him?"

"Ten years. He was … he was a child. He showed me some of his school work and asked if we could 'dance crazy'. We did that when he was younger." Still looking at his feet, he added morosely, "He is no longer a child."

"Tell me about 'dancing crazy'," Shepard said gently. "I confess, I have a hard time imagining you doing that."

"It was all too rare. It—" His eyes changed, and she recognized the memory taking him over, leaning in to hear the whispered words. "I check my extranet contacts; I expect an update on my next target. The console plays music. Old. Unfashionable. Kolyat jumps into the room. 'Father!' He runs around in circles. I scoop him up, toss him into the air. He shrieks, laughs. 'Spin me!'"

He paused and Shepard thought the memory had passed, but his eyes were still focused inward. They were green now, rather than the typical black, she noticed with surprise. Did they change color depending on the memory?

Thane continued, "The console beeps. I put him down, click the message. 'Father,' he pleads. Tugs my sleeve. 'I need to read this,' I say. I don't look at him." He put his head down on his knees, his shoulders quivering, and Shepard wondered if he was crying. She wanted to put her arm around him, but didn't know if it was appropriate, or if it was safe to touch him in the middle of a memory, so she kept her hands to herself, looking out as the ship streaked through the endless night, until he had gained control over himself again.

"Do you want to go on?" she asked softly when he raised his head.

"Yes. I'm sorry for that."

"You don't need to be. This is something you feel deeply about, as you should. No apologies necessary." Cautiously, Shepard asked, "Is there a reason why this is coming up now?"

He frowned, trying to find the thread of the narrative. "When my wife departed from her body I attended to that issue," he said at last. "I left Kolyat in the care of his aunts and uncles. I have not seen him or talked to him since. But … my condition—I've been judging my life, measuring what I've added and what I've taken away. I—" Thane paused abruptly.

She felt it was treading too close, but she couldn't help asking. "Why didn't you raise him yourself?"

Thane spread his hands out in front of him, looking them over. "My body is blessed with the skills to take life. The hanar honed them in me. I have few others." He shook his head. "I wanted better for Kolyat, wanted him to find his own way in life. If he hated me for it, so be it—he would not have to share the path of sin."

It hurt Shepard to have such an intelligent man sell himself short this way, but he knew himself and his situation best; it would not be appropriate for her to argue with him now. Besides, it was far too late.

He wasn't paying attention to her anyway, his eyes on the stars. "Thinking of what lies ahead for me, I used my contacts to trace Kolyat. He has become disconnected; he does what his body wills."

"Disconnected? That's a new term for me."

"The body is not our true self, the soul is," he explained. "Body and soul work as one in the whole person. When the soul is weakened by despair or fear, when the body is ill or injured, the individual is disconnected. No longer whole."

"Which is it in Kolyat's case? His body, or his soul?"

"His soul. He has gone to the Citadel and taken a job as a hit man." Thane turned to her, seeming to see her fully for the first time since she had come into the room. "I would like your help to stop him, Shepard. This is not a path he should walk."

She nodded, thinking it through. This was a problem she could solve. Then she frowned. "Who would hire a raw rookie for a contract killing?"

"I fear someone may have seen that we share a name and assumed we share skills." Thane shook his head, looking lost. "I don't know why he would have accepted such a task, however."

"As the only way he could be closer to you?" Shepard suggested softly.

He closed his eyes, the pain of the idea showing on his face. "That thought haunts me more than any other. Is that my legacy to my only son, truly?"

"So maybe hiring him because he shares your name was his idea?"

"Yes. That is possible. But … it doesn't seem right. My name—he shouldn't respect it. Not enough to use it in that manner."

"Why the Citadel? Surely there were places closer to Kahje he could have started without leaping straight into the big time."

"That, too, is my fault, I'm afraid. Years ago I prepared a package for him, a relic of my ill-spent life, and I had volus bankers store it for me, arranging for delivery when I died. Somehow he acquired it early."

"How would he have known to look for it?"

Thane shrugged. "I did wet work on the Citadel around the time his mother died. He may have gone there because it was the last place he knew for certain I had been. Once there, he could have done some searching. It's hard to say. My sister knew about the package, although not what it contained. It's possible she told him."

"I have to ask, Thane. You know where he is—you have more contacts on the Citadel than I do and you know I don't have any tracking skills. Why do you need my help?"

He looked straight at her, his beautiful black eyes on hers. "I'm not asking because I need your help. I'm asking because I want it. Because I want … I am afraid of what will happen if I do this alone. I wish you to be there to help prevent … I don't know what."

"Of course. I'm happy to. Well, happy perhaps the wrong word, but …" She was stammering, but Thane was no longer listening, lost in another memory.

"The last time I saw my son," he murmured. "They've wrapped her body in seaweed. Weighted it with stones. He tries to pull away from me, calls for her. The hanar lift her off the platform. They sing like bells: 'The fire has gone to be kindled anew.' He begs them not to take her away. They let her body slide into the water. He hits me. 'Don't let them! Stop them! Why weren't you—'" He took a deep breath. "It rains. It always rains on Kahje. Warm water pours down his face."

Water was threatening to run down Shepard's face, too, his grief and Kolyat's all too real. Was that how Kaidan had felt when she died? "I'm so sorry," she whispered. "I didn't mean to make you relive that."

Blinking, Thane came back to himself. "Perfect memory," he said slowly. "It is sometimes a burden."

"I can see that." Shepard wiped a tear away, feeling as though she had joined in an emotion that didn't belong to her, intruded on something private. She got up, not wanting him to feel crowded. "I'll … we'll go to the Citadel," she promised.

"Thank you, Shepard."

As she left the room, he turned back to look at the stars once more.