A/N: Welcome to chapter 14 everyone. There're a good few references to numerous chapters in this one - most notably chapters 3, 6, 7 and 8 - so if you catch a reference you aren't sure of (which is unlikely) thems be the places to begin looking. The next chapter will be up in a few days :-)
Reviews and the like are loved and cherished.
Do enjoy.
Yours faithfully,
L.G.
Counsel
In which Shepard and Thane enjoy breakfast and discuss Kolyat's concerns
"What're you doing there?" Shepard asked through a chortle.
She had just come back from the galley with a light meal for she and her beau to share in their quarters, having split the morning chores with him when they were finally able to coax themselves from their blanket's velvety confines and into a clean set of civvies each - cargos, combats and a black tee for her and comfortable slacks and a loose, dark brown, button-down shirt for him - and had expected to find him, under the terms of said chore-split, making their morning brew with the tea maker he had been carefully unpacking when she'd left.
And he had, she was sure.
She could smell tea leaves on the air, and could see the tea maker standing all shiny and proud upon the coffee table that had, in her absence and per long-established breakfast time custom, been pulled out from its usual place and bordered, on one corner, by the two large, square show-pillows that normally sat over the bank of usable ones on their bed.
What she had not expected though was the presence of the sand heater on said table; its presence and use, she noted as she watched her beau ease a second full mug into its open belly, for things as yet unknown to her.
Grinning, she couldn't help herself.
"It's not bath time, is it?"
The note of hope in her voice made Thane chuckle. "No, but it will keep the mugs warm regardless" he explained, straightening as she drew near and taking the tray she was carrying so that she could crouch by the heater for a better look. He had set the former down beside the latter, the tea maker quickly banished from the table to make room, when she delivered her verdict on his ingenuity..
"Clever..I'd never have thought of that"
..and he dipped his head modestly, waiting until she had kicked off her boots and settled on one of the pillows before taking a seat on that which remained and surveying the array. She had done well on her trip to the galley, the selection of cold but cooked meats, flatbread, quickly scrambled eggs and two handfuls of what Kehksi had translated as 'Mealworms' - lightly toasted in a dry pan as her mate had instructed - making up a fine (if eclectic) breakfast, and they were quick to take up plates and fill them to their liking before conversation really got going as they began their meal.
Minutes went by.
Conjectures about what they planned to do with their first full day together were swapped.
And all told it was a mighty fine middle-of-the-morning repast..until, that is, Shepard got curious.
From the moment she'd gathered up the packet of the Drellish staple from within one of the boxes by the door, she'd wondered at its taste. She hadn't dared to try any while cooking it, unsure as she was whether eating it semi-raw would do her stomach any good, but now she had both motive and opportunity to test the waters about giving it a go. Thus, after her mate had swallowed down his latest mouthful, she brooked..
"Could I have a taste of that?"
..gesturing to the neatly kept heap of dry, brownish, rice-looking things on his plate.
At her interest, Thane grinned. "It is Ts'al'teh" he said, using the best Basic approximation of the syllables he could so his translator didn't appropriate them in a fit of pique as it did with the word 'Siha'. "And yes, of course you may." He scooped up a spoonful for her as she grappled with the new word..
"Ss-al-tee?"
..and chuckled softly, correcting her twice..
"Ts..al..teh"
"Sss..ahl..teh?"
"Closer. Add a 'T' sound at the beginning. Ts..Ts-al-teh"
"T-sal-teh?"
..before giving a nod of pride for her effort and handing her the implement and the taster it carried.
Glad of her success, she eyed her prize briefly and then took the entire lot in one.
Quickly.
Cleanly.
Chew and swal-HK!
She went rigid as the taste registered - an unholy mix, to her taste buds, of burnt toast and gristle. To her credit though, she didn't gag and got it all down with two deep gulps from her teacup; her mate looking on with a mix of concern and mirth. The latter won out when she croaked..
"I'm fine"
..and turned an embarrassed smile on him. "That just.."
"Has an acquired taste, yes?"
Nodding, she mustered a confident, certain, "Oh-ho yes" to which Thane, hoping to ease the flush in her cheeks with a little empathy, replied, "Much like cheese, I'd wager. Hm?"
His enquiring tone, the deadpan delivery and the slight quirk of the brow that came with the words combined to leave Shepard fighting back hacking laughter. It had been a quiet day, the one he was referring to; the one that saw her, with an innocence about his people and their eating habits she was no longer possessed of, open a tub containing a strong, colony-made cheddar and offer him first dibs. Stupidly she'd thought that, since she and her then Drellish friend got on so well and had a good few things in common despite their obvious differences, her love for the stuff would be mutual.
As it turned out, it was not.
Very not.
Unequivocally not.
Had he not been so already the poor man would have turned four shades of green at the scent of the stuff, and had looked distinctly peaky for a good hour after his initial exposure. Never was she permitted to bring little plastic boxes into his quarters again.
"Can I apologise for that again please?", she snickered, giving him an affectionate nudge to the shoulder. "I didn't realise that dairy and Drell weren't compatible."
"You may, and they most certainly aren't" Thane replied, murmuring a genial 'Thank you' as she returned his spoon before turning back to his breakfast. Shepard did the same, glad to cleanse her palate with eggs, assorted meats and tea.
Lots of tea.
The morning blend her beau had picked was spicy and warming, a little like cinnamon, and she was midway through making them a second mug each - his sorted, hers on the boil - when, as she watched the tea maker whirr away to itself in its spot beside the table, a thought..
..Kolyat bought this..
..struck her and brought to the fore of her mind that which yesterday she had forced to the back of it; her impromptu meeting with Thane's taciturn son and the worries he had about his father.
Worries that, given the promise she'd made to him, she'd have to raise sooner or later.
Looking back towards her mate as he took a sip from his mug, she felt a swell of trepidation rise up in her; one brought on both by her long-conditioned need to keep stress away from him and, she realised, by something more. In deciding to put off telling Thane about her talk with Kolyat the way she had, she'd essentially inserted herself into an interpersonal dynamic that had absolutely nothing to do with her, and pure as her intentions had been she hadn't the foggiest how Thane would react to that. To her making a decision that was directly to do with his son without his knowledge.
For a brief moment she wondered if she could somehow back peddle - take the decision to hold off back and just act as the messenger Kolyat had taken her to be - but she knew better than to think that the way to correct one potentially mortifying misstep was to compound it by trying to wriggle out of the situation it had brought about. All she could really do was relay what she knew as tactfully as possible, and be open about what had been said.
Easing her now full mug from the tea maker, she took a sip from it after swallowing back a forkful of eggs and picked her moment to segue onto the topic. "I..spoke with Kolyat yesterday" she said, holding back the urge to wince at how damn blunt the words came out sounding.
"Oh?" Thane queried, giving a quick double-blink as he regarded her. He seemed equal parts surprised and curious, though when his eyes flickered, a memory coming and going in the space of a breath, his expression changed; his brows lowering in a frown as mental dots connected with its passing. "He was the 'hold up' you mentioned?"
Now she did wince, admitting, "He caught me on my way to Huerta, yeah" and adding quickly when her beau remained just a shade too quiet and thoughtful for her to believe that he was entirely comfortable with her decision to keep their having met from him, "He was fine when I saw him. Just worried about you and wanting to talk to me about it." Bracing herself for censure then, she explained, "I didn't bring it up yesterday because it was your first day out..but I should have. I'm sorry" and waited, chin dipped pointedly in what she knew to be a placating gesture from a regretful Drell to a potentially offended one, for him to respond.
To warn her away from dealing with Kolyat, perhaps.
Or to take offence at her entirely accidental presumptiveness.
Gladly though, offence wasn't what she'd sown in Thane with her purposeful omission, and so he did neither of the things she expected him to. His fingers instead found her chin the moment she lowered it in apology, raising it back up to its usual proud angle in the hope of conveying the fact that her contrition, while accepted, was not needed. A word then, her word..
"Siha"
..was spoken, and he smiled faintly as his touch fell away and she met his eyes. "You needn't apologise. I understand your reasoning, and am not aggrieved by your choice to only speak of your meeting now. I would though.." His tone changed slightly as he spoke, first becoming a hint more firm. "Thank you in the future to put from your mind thoughts of first days where my son is concerned, and share what you know of him as soon as it is practicable to do so" and then again, mild amusement replacing that firmness as he concluded, "He is mine to fret over, after all."
"Of course he is!" Shepard practically yelped, her cheeks suddenly so red that they rivalled her mate's facial pleats in terms of colouring. She barrelled on quickly, phrases coming fast and half-formed.. "I wasn't trying to- I mean I- I'd never-" ..until Thane cut her off.
"I know. Be calm love..be calm.." he said, his expression and tone equally gentle as he laid a comforting hand upon her arm. Only once he was sure that she had begun to settle properly, her uneasy restlessness petering out, did he prompt, "Now tell me, what about the meeting so unsettled you that it stole your tongue?"
It took her a moment, and a bit of work, but she found her answer. "The entire thing unsettled me. From start to finish."
"Why did it?"
Taking a quick breath as his touch again fell away, she started at the beginning. "I just..didn't have a clue how to handle the situation going in. I didn't expect to see him, and when I did all I could really think was, 'Shit I hope Thane's ok.' I thought he'd come to tell me you'd taken a turn or.." she gave a soft huff, shaking her head at where her mind had first flown in that moment, "..or something."
Thane hummed empathically. He understood the worst-case-scenario gut reaction very, very well.
"Once I'd figured out that you were fine" she went on, recounting her experience as fully as she could while keeping things relevant, "we found a quiet place to talk. He explained that he was concerned for you, and all the while I was wondering how much I could say. How..ahh.." she glanced away briefly, remembered mortification making her stomach flip, "..how much he knew, or not, about the two of us.."
Her mate missed not a beat. "Nothing."
Blinking once, she repeated.. "Nothing" ..curiously. She'd assumed since their meeting that Kolyat didn't know of her relationship with his father, and now that she knew she was right she couldn't but seek a bit more clarity on the issue; if only to make any future meetings she had with him easier on them both.
Thane gave a short nod. "Yes. I had no want to stress him any more than my condition and our past already had, and through our conversations, watchful for such things as I was, I realised that discretion was the better part of valour. At least then." Pausing a moment, he read her expression, seeking out signs of ill will or discomfort. He found none, just focus and concentration, but was still cautious when he next spoke..
"This, perhaps, is something we should discuss"
..testing her reaction to his suggestion.
There was silence first. Silence but for that intent, unwavering regard. Then, slowly enough to betray how much weight she ascribed to talk of Kolyat and her involvement, even tangentially, with him, she tilted her head and gave a very slight nod of agreement.
"Far as I'm concerned" she said, words careful, tone measured, "whatever you think is best for Kolyat is what I'm all for. It's not my place to be making decisions about things like that."
"But it is your place" Thane countered, "to have a say in the decisions I make about such things when they directly concern you, as this one does. With that in mind.." He paused a moment, offering her his hands. She took them without hesitation. "Do you too believe that discretion was wise?"
Again Shepard blinked, her place in her mate's world becoming a hint clearer. A hint sharper. And indeed, if one were inclined to look at it in that way, a hint closer. A hint more involved. Never during their time together had he spoken like this; of them and of Kolyat in the same breath as he was now.
She had no illusions of grandeur about it of course.
It was nothing of a welcome into the bosom of the family Krios or anything close.
Such a thing would frankly petrify her, but this conferral here, now, did not do that at all.
This was simply another of the numerous and varied tiny steps closer to one another they'd been taking since they met; another little movement into each other's orbit initiated by one and accepted by the other.
In recognition of this and agreement with his reasoning, she squeezed his hands, smiling around her reply. "Yeah, you're right. He had enough on his plate, never mind something unexpected."
"And now?" he asked, the intensity behind his curiosity belying the import he placed in her answer.
"Now.." She took a breath, blowing it out slowly between her lips. "..What do you think? You know him a heck of a lot better than I do."
He gave a half-wry, half-mirthful huff. "In this I do not. But I do know that for what little he knows you, he thinks highly of you. He thanks you for his place in life now."
Her brows shot up. "Really?"
Thane nodded, the beginnings of a smile on his lips. "Yes. Of all the scattered things he has shared with me about himself, that one was one of the first."
Suddenly sheepish, Shepard dipped her chin. "Well I didn't expect that, I'll tell you."
"Oh?"
"Thane" she snuffed, "besides sitting with him yesterday afternoon I've only ever met him to punch him in the head."
"An action" he pointed out sagely, "that carried greater weight than it first seemed to. It was the least violent outcome of the situation Kolyat had gotten himself into. You could have shot him. Any of the officers at your back could have shot him, and would have had the standoff escalated. Instead, you saw your moment, distracted him, and at the very least saved him great distress. At best..you saved his life."
Spluttering softly to herself, she averted her gaze a moment, too modest to accept things the way he'd explained them despite the truth in his words. Hers, a soft, "I did what I had to", that came as she glanced back to him, were met with a nod and an equally soft reply..
"You see now why I am so very inclined to think you a Siha"
..that sent her spluttering anew, her heart clenching in that odd, breath-catching way it had taken to doing when her mate reached out with his words and caressed it. Nothing coherent escaped her for a long moment, and she didn't fight it. Instead, she let herself grumble and quiver in the verbal sense as Thane gathered her into his embrace, and did little but those things until she found the only words that really mattered; those she'd repeat until she was hoarse given half a chance.
"I love you."
Her mate returned them in kind, in both the tonal sense and the verbal one, and touched their brows together as the former eased through him and into her; the resonance she could feel where her hand touched his chest tickling her skin.
Seconds passed thus.
Seconds that may have gathered together to form a minute before their conversation resumed.
"And for that reason.." Shepard reiterated softly, leant close to Thane still, "and because I know it's what you want too, I want what's best for Kolyat. What'll stress him least. Whatever that is, I'm for it one hundred percent."
With a hum of appreciation for her candour, Thane pressed into his love's brow a hint more firmly to better impress his gratitude and affection for her. Then, as the moment passed and they eased apart once more to a conversational distance, he answered the question implicit in her words. "I think that modesty would be prudent still. If only to introduce him to the idea of our being together slowly. I've no want to turn yet another part of his world on its head."
Shepard nodded along as he spoke, offering an agreeable, "Of course not", and redoubling her attentiveness when their conversation then turned, from new and loving conferrals of closeness, back to her meeting with his son.
"When you spoke with Kolyat, Siha.." he brooked, "may I ask what else he mentioned to you? Did he only express concern for my wellbeing or did you speak of other things?"
Pensiveness overcame her as she gathered her reply. "He said that he felt you didn't give him a fair hearing when he spoke to you about being worried. He thinks that you made the decision to re-join the Normandy rashly, and said that you'd get sick or hurt if you did. He doesn't want that to happen, and I promised him I'd speak to you about his concerns."
It was a broad-strokes answer, certainly, but the only thing she really left out was his use of memory in conveying what he had. For all it had been greatly useful as an illustrative tool, she saw no need to bring it up now; particularly since the memory in question had involved her mate being in a deeply vulnerable state. She could do open, but there was no way she'd risk mentioning details that might make him recall less healthful times, especially if said details weren't pivotal to their discussion.
None the wiser for the omission, Thane considered her words and the circumstances that precipitated them. That his son had sought her out at all surprised him, and spoke volumes about how concerned he must be. Generally speaking he was a private person, particularly where his emotions were concerned, and would not approach someone in the way he had the Commander (more or less strangers as they were) unless the need was absolutely dire. Upon reflection though, he had to admit the logic of the move.
Whom else could he go to with his concerns, after all?
Kolyat was more or less evangelical about keeping their relationship from his acquaintances, and had never found talking to him about such things at all easy. On the scant occasions he had tried to in the past, he'd invariably wound himself up so completely that talking at all became unbearable, and so they tended, wherever possible, to leave the emotive, uncomfortable topics alone. Now though, doing this was clearly not an option, and with hindsight Thane concluded that, in view of their last conversation regarding his plans to go to war, he should have seen a return to the topic coming. Perhaps not in the form it had arrived in, uncharacteristically involved as it was given Kolyat's habitual arm's length approach with him, but something.
Filing this oddity away for later consideration, he turned his attention back to his mate, saying.. "I see" ..before drawing to the fore of his mind the memory that, for him, underscored what she was speaking of best; the moment that had caused all of the concerns his son had relayed to her. He spoke it out as it came, using it, unwittingly, in much the same way Kolyat had his.
"Kolyat settles across from me at the table.." he recounted, the weight of his Siha's gaze lost on him as the world about him faded, "..his expression - facial and, though consciously muted, tonal – conveying the same mix of curiosity and reserve that I have been met with of late when he has visited the hospital.
'What did you want to see me about?' he asks, the words echoed faintly by that tone in a way he used to deny me outright. That he does not now speaks more of the progress we have made in our relationship than anything either of us could convey with spoken words. I bask in that knowledge..in the sound of my son's voice, unfettered by loathing..and then broach the topic that I know risks alienating him from me all over again.
'Commander Shepard visited me yesterday afternoon' I say.
Surprise takes his tonal curiosity up an octave for the length of a breath. 'Really?' he asks, furtiveness and remembered embarrassment colouring the pleating on his cheeks. 'Why?'
I take a short breath to quiet the urge to sigh, knowing just by looking at his face that he assumes she came to speak with me about him. Such a thing would be easier to broach I'd wager. As it is, although I will not show it vocally or otherwise, apprehension claws at me. I find I cannot but speak bluntly; needing to get what I must tell him said so that it can be dealt with.
'She has need of me aboard the Normandy. I shall be departing with her within the fortnight.'
Abruptly, his chest falls utterly silent; the loss and the shock in his face cutting me to the quick. 'You're joking..right?' he says, disbelief in both his words and his searching expression. I cannot lie to him.
'No' I reply, the word necessarily even.
As I expected it would, anger fills his eyes. Anger and incomprehension. 'But father..' he splutters, '..you've only just got back on your feet!'
'I have been properly physically able for the past two months, Kolyat.' I say, the words even still.
He chuffs derisively in response, and I blink at the sound's sudden intrusion into our otherwise tonally silent conversation. 'Physically able to walk around the hospital, sure' he clips, 'but you're not fit to fight!'
I draw myself up in my chair. 'My role will be advisory only' I explain, hoping to soothe him. 'Commander Shepard said herself that she will not risk my safety on the front lines. I need never leave the Normandy.'
I am unsuccessful.
'For the love of..' he snaps, scrubbing a hand over his face in obvious exasperation. 'Taking an advisory role on a warship puts you no further from danger than if you were on the front lines!'.."
His son's words ringing in his ears, Thane jolted himself free of the memory to find his mate's attention riveted on him; her eyes wide and breaths a hint quicker than they had been before. Exhaling slowly as he re-centred himself, he met her gaze. For a beat, there was silence. Necessary, welcome silence as the memory's impact settled upon her.
Then, words.
Careful ones.
"Kolyat asked me" Shepard broached, "to speak to you for him, so I'm gonna do that. About your place in the war..leaving the Citadel..things like that. Ok?"
"And you will relay your findings to him, yes?" Thane asked. It was curiosity not reserve that prompted the question, and he responded, after her..
"He wants feedback, yeah. How he gets that..from me..or you..that's up to you"
..with a nod and an obliging, "Of course. Please, go ahead."
Averting her eyes a moment, she wet her lips and puffed out a breath, collecting all she'd gathered from her meeting with the young Drell into phrases that she would put to Thane. The first came intuitively, and was perhaps the most obvious of the undercurrents in their interaction that she'd perceived.
"He doesn't want you to leave."
Again, Thane nodded, his reply simple. "I know."
Meeting his eyes as he spoke it, her tummy gave a distinct flutter. There was a resignation there..a sadness, quiet and only detectable because she knew him and he was comfortable letting her see it..that she hadn't expected. Her first instinct was to offer comfort..to ask what was wrong..but she was not here, in this moment, for Thane. She was here for Kolyat and had to speak for him, and the only way she could rightly do that was by keeping her mate, for the moment, at a bit of a distance.
"You don't have to leave" she pressed. "You could stay where it's safe."
His response was quick, practiced. "I could not."
"Tell me why."
"Outside of the fact that my skills..chiefly infiltration and tactical planning..will be an asset to the war effort and therefore wasted if I do remain, there are three reasons in sum" he said, taking a slow sip of tea before turning his mind to explaining himself further. "I have been discharged from the hospital now, yet need daily doses of a medication that can only be stored and administered with medical grade equipment. I would therefore need a domicile close to the hospital to make what would be the daily commute workable, and frankly I could not afford one."
A frown pinched Shepard's brow. "No savings?"
Thane shook his head. "What meagre fare I had went to Kolyat on my instructions prior to my operation. I thought I was to die, love. I couldn't not expedite the inheritance process a little. And besides, giving what I did to him as a gift saved him from having to pay inheritance tax on it. It was for the best at the time, and while it leaves me wanting now I would not change the decision nor take back the gift. It has helped him acquire the apartment he now lives in. I am content with that."
Swallowing to stop the swell of emotion his words left in her chest from showing in her voice overly, she chanced a smile. "Ok. So the savings are with Kolyat and you can't afford a place on the Citadel. What else? You said reasons."
"Secondly" he went on, "I could not accept the alternative to purchasing an apartment of my own; staying with my son in his. This would simply be unworkable. Our relationship.." He thought for a moment, looking for the best way to express what he wished to. "It works best, at least at this stage, when he can leave the room if I irk him somehow and be content in the knowledge that he will not see me again until he desires to. It lets him control the speed of our reacquaintance, and that pleases him, I think."
"That..makes a lot of sense, thinking about it" Shepard commented, tilting her head in thought as her beau took another bite of his breakfast. She knew from personal experience with her mother's Gareth that she had gotten on better with him, prior to realising at about eighteen that the man wasn't the spawn of Satan come to replace her father, when she could deal with him on her own terms and, more importantly, in her own time. Relaying this parallel to Thane, she was careful not to try and come across as overly empathetic - the differences in their respective circumstances making more than a gentle comparison-come-reassurance untenable - and allowed her aside to wind down naturally once it was made so she could get back, with a deferential, "Sorry. You were saying?", to listening as he presented his final reason for being unable to remain on the Citadel.
He gave a nod of acknowledgement, then spoke it..albeit haltingly.
"And thirdly..perhaps most pressingly..is the simple fact that I do not want to remain here." The words carried an undertone that she couldn't quite place at first, but as he added.. "Hearing it spoken aloud is..discomforting..for I know what Kolyat would glean from it" ..she cottoned on.
Guilt.
It was guilt.
She had to probe.
"What? What'd you think he'll glean from you wanting a change of scenery?"
His response..
"Abandonment"
..almost knocked her sideways.
"I.." she frothed. "Abandon-..what?"
Her pique passed over him like oil over water. "And he would have good reason to feel that way."
"What reason?"
"Precedent."
A silence crept between them for a beat, the word hanging in the air before Shepard, grasping for meaning, repeated it in question.
"Precedent?"
Thane nodded, though when he went to elaborate he found himself at a rare and sudden loss for words. He knew what he wanted to say, certainly; had how he would explain himself planned out in his mind. But actually doing that? Sharing something he felt so very guilty about? Even with his mate..she who he trusted most in the galaxy and with whom he had shared so much without ever facing disgust or judgement..exposing what was in essence the legacy of his greatest failing was not an easy thing to do. He managed it though. After a long moment of gathering himself, seeking her eyes for the comfort he knew he would find in them (bordered by curiosity and concern as it now was), he managed it.
"..Siha.. ..I have always been a deeply selfish man."
Shocked by his tone, she scowled, a kneejerk defence of his character coming up. "No y-"
He wouldn't hear of it.
"No" he clipped, shaking his head tightly. "Hear me. Throughout my life, I have acted selfishly. Perhaps..it is partially a product of my training. To be self-reliant to the point of excluding the needs of others in favour of my own. But regardless of its root, I have been and am a deeply selfish man. When my family was young and I had to support them, I took the job that was most accessible to me. Easiest for me. That I was best at. Yes, the wages were a factor, but there are other well paid occupations outside of mine. I could have retrained, yet I did not. Pridefully. Wilfully. I went back to work."
Shepard's brow furrowed all the further as she listened, taking up her cup and drawing from it carefully to mask how the roll of adrenaline that went through her at his words made her jittery.
"Then" he went on, "Irikah was taken from me, and again..I took the route that best suited me. Not my son, who needed me. Not our wider family, in mourning. Me. I did what I felt was necessary chiefly for my own purposes. For revenge. I left my son with his aunts and uncles to go out and murder murderers." He shook his head. "Becoming what I so despised in the process."
"It was instinct, Thane" she hissed, hiding a pronounced wince of discomfort with another sip from her mug. She thought to argue with him. To try and persuade him that he was not solely at fault in that moment. That the circumstances had forced his hand. She so wanted to, but she knew she would lose. They had touched upon this most delicate of topics before, long ago during their first tour, and she had been unable to convince him otherwise. Instead, now, she simply listened.
He spoke on as if she hadn't said a word.
"And after that was done, I returned to him briefly, yes, but..shame at causing his mother's death..grief..worry for his safety..the knowledge that he would have a better life without my being there to stain it..they kept me as distant as it was possible for me to be. Then.." he drew in a slow breath, the remorse in his tone easing as he began to speak of the present, "ten years flew by..and you helped me reconnect with him when I thought there was no time. And now..by the grace of the Gods I am yet here. I was proven wrong, and he is safe..and he somehow..somehow wants me in his life."
As his words trailed off with something akin to wonder, Shepard gathered her most gentle, unassuming tone and prompted, "And I know you want to be in it", setting down her mug and smiling softly when his eyes again met hers. "It's the Citadel you want to leave, not Kolyat."
"Of course" Thane replied, nodding once, "but will he know that? I have wanted him in my life always, Siha. Never more than through our estranged years. It was shame that kept me from him then. Shame and the want to keep him safe from my.." He paused, reconsidering his word-choice. "From me."
She grimaced, agonised for him, but he went on before she could muster words.
"Will he not feel as though I am abandoning him? Leaving him yet again to do some more important thing than remain by his side? Grown or not, with our history..with my precedent..I fear he will. And what is worse.." a chuff escaped him, flat, mirthless and self-deprecating, "..even his most earnest wish for me to remain out of danger is not enough to stay me.. ..I would leave still, knowing that he wants me not to."
Silence reigned for a long, long moment then; Thane fixed on giving himself a thorough, if silent, mental flaying for his egoism and Shepard, poor stunned Shepard, trying her best to piece together a response that might, if nothing else, help her do what her every fibre screamed at her to and reassure her mate all she could. She was grasping for almost a minute..looking for a line, a question, anything that'd let her penetrate what he had told her in a constructive way..until she found one not in what he had said, but in what he hadn't.
Context.
She needed context.
"Why do you think he'll feel that way now?" she asked, her voice both tender and curious. "He didn't seem to when I spoke to him. All I got was worry." Thinking back a moment, she clarified, "Ok, a little anger too..and some confusion..but they were overlaid by worry."
Thane, drawn from his fugue by the question, stiffened at the coming of a memory he did not call forth willingly. Still though, despite it taking him by surprise and being as painful as the last one to share, he spoke it out..
"Tonal rage boils through Kolyat's chest, his breaths tight with it as he shoves away from the table and jabs a finger at me. 'Don't you talk to me about presence!' he seethes. 'My only memory of you is your damned ABSENCE! I don't even know your face!'.."
..and then sought his mate's eyes as the room came back into focus; finding comfort there again despite the shock in her expression. She seemed at a loss at first, her attempt to put an encouraging gloss on the situation apparently derailed, but with the persistence that he had come to both see as her hallmark and love about her, she soldiered on through.
"He was speaking in anger" she offered. "You said it yourself, and besides, what he said would only make sense if he was raging and looking for things to say to hurt you. I mean, how can he not know your face? He's Drellish."
"He was angry, yes" Thane agreed, "but one can have perfect memory and still not know another's face."
Shepard frowned, confused but also glad for the expository tack her mate seemed to have taken in answering her. He wasn't wallowing in guilt and self-deprecation, despite seeming to have a counter for her attempt at positivity. That, at this moment in time, was good enough for her. "How's that?"
"You recall when first I spoke to you of Kolyat?" he queried, "When he was disconnected?"
"I do, yeah."
"His words implied something similar about he and I. You were correct of course. He, by his nature, remembers my face. He couldn't not. But there is a difference between recalling what I look like, and building up layers of memory around that facet of me; really learning it and coming to know it as mine through long acquaintance. That was what he implied was lacking. Were he human, he may have said instead, 'You've never been there for me. I don't know who you are.'.."
"..Right.." she managed, scrabbling again for an optimistic slant to take on such a vitriolic statement; true as it may well have been. She came up more or less lacking, though did have one proverbial Ace to play. And play it she did.
"He still seemed more worried than angry when he spoke to me" she said, reaching and laying a hand over his wrist. He covered it with his and favoured her with a small though thankful smile as she added, "I think that's what you should take as most representative of his feelings now. As you said, you and he have a history, and if angry memories come easily to him when you're talking about things that upset him.."
He nodded. "They do."
"..then he may well have had a clearer head and been able to put his feelings across more easily talking with me than he could when you told him about rejoining the Normandy. So while you got shock..anger..maybe some remembered precedent.."
"You may have seen the truth of things" he concluded, unsure if he agreed entirely but unable to raise an objection that didn't, in his mind, smack of guilt-ridden pessimism.
Hearing him, Shepard smiled. "Exactly."
Thane too managed another, this one wider by a fraction than that he gave a moment back. "I do hope you're right."
"Course I am" she enthused with confidence and playful mirth, banishing the 'I hope so too' that was lingering in the back of her mind before it could make an escape attempt, and then asking in much more gentle tones when she'd eased her fingers through his, "..You ok so far? This..I didn't expect things to be so.."
"Complex?" he offered, his smile remaining as his gaze lit upon their joined hands. He gave her fingers a gentle squeeze, which she returned.
"Not that" she huffed, faint amusement tugging at the edges of her lips. "You're a complex man, Thane. S'one of the things I love about you. No it's..I didn't expect Kolyat to come to me." A hint of apology wisped into her expression. "I didn't expect to be asking you these things for him."
"I know" he replied, understanding in both his tone and his eyes when again they met hers. He gave her fingers another gentle squeeze, then gathered her hands in his and held them as he so often had when they spoke in the Life Support plant. "Honouring the trust he placed in you is no bad thing, Siha" he assured her, noting quickly when she began to frown, "and it was a conferral of trust. No matter what else may have prompted him to seek you out, if he did not trust that you would, if possible, lend him an ear, he would not have confided in you."
Touched by the thought in a way she hadn't been before, Shepard managed little more than a quiet, "..well I.." at first, her gaze flicking down to their hands as she tried to collect a more coherent response. Finding that one was not forthcoming, she defaulted back to what she was good at – making sure her mate was fine – and gave a little nod and a puff of sheepish laughter as she asked..
"..You ok?"
..a second time.
He nodded, reading her acceptance of the trust she hadn't realised she'd earned in her modesty. "Yes" he said. "Are you?"
"Better now" she replied, gathering herself as she slipped back into intel-gathering mode. She wanted, now that she understood the situation a bit more fully, to keep a quiet, private lookout as she sought answers for Kolyat for anything in her mate's words that was to her a hint of selfishness, and so put to him with doing that in mind, "If I could just ask though.."
"Of course" he replied.
"Why do you want to leave the Citadel? Why don't you want to stay where it's safe?"
If there was self-interest to be found, she reasoned..for the simple fact that he wanted to leave the Citadel despite Kolyat's not wanting him to was not selfish in her opinion..it would be in the whys and wherefores behind his decision. And if there was none, she'd have another Ace to play if an opportunity to offer comfort or perspective arose.
Taking her second question first, Thane rejoined, "The Normandy is safe. There I have easy access to medical care, a room in which to stay, the company of close friends.." He gave her a knowing look, though left out an overt mention of their relationship. Since he was giving her an answer that was aimed at Kolyat, she could empathise with the omission. "..and the security of being on the most advanced stealth warship in the galaxy."
"Being on a warship" she nudged, using Kolyat's words now to argue against him even though she had used the same reasoning Thane was against the younger Drell when she'd spoken with him, "is no safer than being on the front lines."
"A stealth warship" he emphasised, a quiet tonal smile escaping him at her initiative. "It is not the Normandy's role to dive into the fray guns blazing. It is a reconnaissance vessel. A watchful guardian." Again, he caught her eye pointedly, his backhanded ascription of the qualities of a Siha to the ship – and by extension its captain – unmissed if her grin was anything to go by. "I shall be nowhere near the front lines."
"Is it only that though?" she prompted, "Is it just that there's a room and safety and people you like? You love Kolyat, obviously, and I'm sure you could sort something out room-wise if you really dug about. The Hanar wouldn't let a national..not one who has served their people as well as you have at least..go without a place to rest his head. I bet they'd even manage to sort out trips to Huerta for you if you told them of the need."
She was fishing, she knew, her expectations of the Hanar - especially now that there was a bloody war on - purposefully unrealistic, but she had to try and give him the hardest time possible to see if he could talk his way clear; if he could justify himself to her so that, if he ended up going to talk to Kolyat about all this, he would have had the chance to do so in a friendly setting first.
At her question's latest iteration, Thane paused. Not because he hadn't an answer for it, but because it, like so much that'd passed between them this morning, had a weight to it that deserved a moment's reflection to see it rightly conveyed.
"I love my son infinitely" he began, the words steeped in affection he wasn't sure Kolyat would accept from him if he tried to show it to him openly. "Were he in danger, or Goddess forbid sick, I would not leave his side for anything."
"Course not" Shepard murmured understandingly, her voice made soft so that it didn't disturb her mate's train of thought.
"As it is though" he went on, "he does not need me with him to see to those things now for he is in neither; be it danger or ill health. And so..I am willing to leave. Indeed I want to, and, to return to your question, it is not just those things that underpin that want, no. My reasoning is..personal."
"Not me?" she pressed, loathe to ask but needing in the same breath to be sure that she, important to him or not, was not the lynchpin upon which his decision was resting. If she was..well..outside of finding an example of distinct selfishness in his reasoning, she wasn't quite sure how she'd feel about that.
Uncomfortable was the first word that came to mind.
Guilty as all goddamn fucking hell was next.
Then came responsible.
Responsible for taking a father away from the son who wanted him to stay so they could repair a long-damaged but still wanted relationship.
Fretting, she took another quick mouthful of eggs to stop herself from fidgeting uneasily as she awaited Thane's response. At first..
"Yes and no"
..it really didn't help the sinking feeling she was getting. Then though, he elaborated, and she began to understand.
"No, you are not my only reason, and not the one I would share with Kolyat if he asked me the question you have. But also yes. I cannot but love you, Siha, and would follow you to the ends of the galaxy if that was where you led."
Her heart doing another of its curious breath-catch-causing-clench-things, Shepard gave a little nod. She was following now, understood where he was coming from, and could honestly say she felt the same. She did in fact. Say those same words as she abandoned her cutlery and the diversion activity it provided and slipped her hands again into his with an affectionate, "Ok, I'm with you."
Glancing at their hands, Thane replied, "And I with you" before going on with his explanation. "Truly" he said, "besides my wish to positively influence in any way I can the outcome of the war, and my natural inclination to be close to you, there is but one reason I wish to leave this place." He paused, then spoke..
"I would leave because when last I returned I thought I was going to die here"
..and for the second time that morning managed to almost knock his mate sideways without trying. Her breath caught in her throat, fingers clenching about his at his words. He squeezed them comfortingly, speaking on.
"It was an unpleasant truth, certainly, but one I had to face at the time. Now though, it is my truth no longer, and I would like very much to be as free of its memory as possible. That is why I want to leave."
Returning the squeeze upon his fingers, Shepard puffed out a slow breath, averting her eyes as she pushed away the prickle of unease hearing her mate speak of such things brought on. She remained thus, shoulders hunched, eyes on the tabletop, hands in Thane's, until she was sure that she had a lid on the awful memories his explanation had brought up and room in her mind for nothing more than the reasons he could speak what he had done.
He was well.
Well and coming with her.
Only then did she straighten, offering him a smile, small but honest, as she met his gaze.
"And leave you shall" she said, confiding with a breathy laugh in the hope of soothing his concerns regarding the self-centredness of wanting to, "I don't know where you get this selfishness idea from. There's nothing selfish there. I'd want the same. I'd want to be in a safe place with friends around me and easy access to my doctor. I'd want to be near the person I love, if at all possible. And I'd want to be categorically away from the place I thought I'd die in."
Thane though, while touched, did not find the comfort she'd hoped he would in her assessment. He believed it to be the truth as she saw it, certainly, but found that it was lacking in one crucial area. Needing it addressed properly, having only given it a scant glance earlier in their conversation, he pressed, "Even at the expense of a relationship?"
Shepard frowned. "Sorry?"
"Would you want those things still" he asked, "if you knew that pursuing them would negatively impact one of your relationships? As I have told you..even though I fear that leaving will wound my relationship with my son and jeopardise my place in his life..I wish to still." He was quiet for the length of two breaths, then confessed solemnly, his eyes on hers, "I don't know what to tell him, love. I don't know what to say."
Struck by the frankness of the statement, it was all she could do to gaze upon him a moment, collecting her thoughts as best she could. She had no quick fixes or easy mends for him, but she did, looking back through her memories of the infrequent instances where her beau spoke to her of his relationship with Kolyat, have a lick of inspiration. A pearl of wisdom that he himself had once spoken. It'd struck her at the time, and she'd kept it so close to her heart during the period in which his health went south that she could recite it word for word.
"All things worth keeping" she said, altering the phrase slightly for her purposes, "are difficult. You told me that."
He gave a slight nod. "I did."
"And I'm sure Kolyat knows it too. He's been by you for months now, hasn't he. Working on your relationship."
A frown now. "Work that I may undo.."
She shook her head, tugging his hands gently. "It'll only undo if you let it, Thane. He's confused by your decision to leave the Citadel, but he doesn't hate you for it. Explain how you feel to him. Tell him what you told me. That you can help the war effort and want space, literal space, between you and the Citadel and Huerta. Between you and here. Not between you and him. Let him know you'll be back to see him regularly, because you damn well will be if I can help it. Keep in contact. Heck, if you want you're welcome to use the AICS to do it through. If it's secure enough for us to talk through, it's secure enough for Kolyat. There's so much you can do to keep him close despite the distance. You'll just need to get him in on it."
And that he did. Slipping his hands from his mate's, Thane opened his Omni-tool's messaging pane and composed a note..
/Son.
Commander Shepard has informed me of your concerns regarding my decision to leave the Citadel. I would like to discuss them with you in person, at your convenience. This evening perhaps? Or tomorrow?
Be safe.
Thane/
..that he sent off promptly lest the swell of positivity her advice had given desert him. Words were then spoken as he met her eyes..
"It is done"
..that earned him a beaming smile and a much needed kiss. He returned it gladly, the discomfort that had accrued through their talk beginning to ease, and was about to suggest a more savoury topic of conversation to set the remainder of their breakfast to when his mate proffered her own.
"You know.." she said, "we've spent all this time talking about Kolyat..and its all been uncomfortable memories and seriousness. Which is fine. God knows you need that sometimes. But..I know there's more to your relationship than that. I know you're proud of him. I can see it in your face when you speak about him." Smiling then as Thane did at her observation, she put again to him what she last had regarding a much less comfortable topic.
"Tell me why."
To her absolute delight, she barely got another word in for a full thirty minutes.
And now!
Coming in the next chapter
A friendship is patched up
And a message received sends Scalia sneaking