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Rocks and Shoals
Part One: Run Aground Off the Reefs
Chapter Five: Beyond Words
"The way she mumbled her 'goodnight' as she slowly slid the door shut before him. The way she didn't look him in the eye. The way the silence clawed at him when he stood staring at her door wondering where the fuck it had all begun to change." - In a post-war galaxy, Kolyat and Oriana found each other when they went looking for themselves.
They sat at one of the cafeteria's tables, trays of slowly cooling food before them. Oriana was scrolling through a datapad, her fork held still over her pasta. Kolyat was staring off past her to the cafeteria's entrance, watching the other C-Sec agents as they filed through for their meals. He tapped a rhythm out on the table absentmindedly.
Oriana's eyes glanced up from her pad, peeking through her hair, head still down. "Do you mind?" she said softly, hoping against all hope that he didn't take it as an attack and start this whole fiasco again.
Kolyat looked at her, his hand stilling its movement. "Am I bothering you?"
She could sense the derision in the words already. Licking her lips, she watched him a moment, and then decided it wasn't worth it. She wasn't about to get into this in the middle of the cafeteria. She rolled her eyes, returning to her datapad. "Nevermind," she sighed.
Across from her, Kolyat curled his fingers into his palm and rested it against the table, grumbling and returning to his food.
Oriana didn't dare breathe a word to him, even in thanks. She kept her focus on the report at her fingertips. She stabbed at her pasta and brought a forkful to her mouth.
"Are we visiting PC3 today?" he asked quietly, referring to the third processing center along Vhenma ward. His gaze was intent on his food.
Oriana looked back up at him, mouth moving slowly around her pasta. She took a moment to swallow and then straightened up. "Yeah. That's the plan. I want to see how Precinct 4 is handling the influx."
He nodded, lips pursed tight.
"Unless you have any other suggestions for today?" She was careful not to slide any accusation into her tone. Even still, she tensed in preparation for the inevitable snide remark.
He finally looked at her. He shrugged his shoulders and fiddled with his fork. "No."
She narrowed her eyes at him. Who was this person? This noncommittal, apathetic person? Not even enough scorn to summon more than a pathetic 'no'?
It had been going on for the last couple of weeks or so, ever since Kolyat had come back into the conference room after his talk with Bailey and dropped the datapad with the personnel approvals onto the table. He had said maybe seven words to her in the time since and she was beginning to wonder if the kid wasn't working on some devious plan to lull her into a false sense of security before absolutely demolishing her in a sudden tirade of childish contempt.
And then she had to laugh at herself. How paranoid was she? How absolutely messed up had things gotten that that was what she had come to expect from him? Maybe he was just as tired of the fighting as she was. Maybe he had…given up.
She mentally scoffed at the thought. The boy was as stubborn as a hungry krogan and he wouldn't let her off this easy if it wasn't for a reason. She was inclined to think it was anything but altruistic. After all, the drell hardly knew the meaning of the word.
"Oh no."
Oriana glanced up at his soft expel of breath to find his eyes wide and riveted to something past her shoulder. She was about to turn when his hand shot out and gripped her wrist.
"Don't look back. She'll see us."
Oriana was so surprised by his willingness to touch her that she sat dumbly staring at him. And then his touch retreated, and he hunched his shoulders in, turning his head with a hand over his face in some feeble attempt to not be seen by…something.
"Kolyat!"
The loud, cheerful voice was faintly familiar and just as Oriana began to twist in her seat to look back, a woman breezed past her and dropped down into the seat next to Kolyat, wrapping an arm jovially around his shoulders and squeezing him in greeting. He only groaned, dropping his head to the table and pushing his tray away.
The woman had thick brown hair tied up in a messy bun, with small, brown eyes and tan skin. She was wearing a black N7 hoodie and Alliance uniform pants, and Oriana could see the glint of metallic and carbon fiber beneath one of her sleeves where the woman's prosthetic arm leaned against the table, still holding Kolyat in a near-chokehold with her other arm. "Bailey told me I'd find you here, you runt."
Oriana blinked in realization and gaped at the woman. "Shepard?"
Commander Shepard looked up, face breaking into an even wider smile as she recognized the younger Lawson and let go of Kolyat. The drell grunted in unspoken appreciation and shrugged her off. "Ori! What the hell are you doing here?" she asked excitedly.
Oriana took a moment to gather her words, still shocked at the commander's sudden entrance. "I'm uh, I'm here on assignment."
Shepard raised a thin brow. "Oh?" She glanced back to the sulking drell at her side. "You two working together?"
"If you can call it that," Kolyat grumbled, valiantly trying to edge away from the terror at his side but succeeding only in getting dragged back by Shepard's arm locking firmly around his neck once more.
"Well, that's great. I'm sure you two make an excellent team."
Oriana caught Kolyat's eyes and for the first time they seemed to be on the same wavelength. She offered a tight smile. "We make do."
Kolyat rolled his eyes and didn't bother expanding on her answer.
"So what kind of work are you doing?"
Oriana straightened in her seat, a swell of pride brewing in her chest. "My organization, Safe Homes, is combining efforts with the Victims Tracing Department of C-Sec here on the Citadel to reunite the war-torn families."
"Says the brochure," Kolyat muttered.
Oriana threw him a withering look but didn't comment.
Shepard brought her bionic hand up and rubbed at her chin, musing. "That's a valiant effort, Ori."
"Yeah, sure, look," Kolyat interrupted, face a dark mask of irritation as he squirmed under Shepard's hold. "Is there a reason you're here, crazy?"
Shepard grinned broadly at the drell, tugging him closer. He nearly choked. "Only to see you, honeybunch."
Oriana was so taken aback by the friendliness between them. And yeah, she'd call it friendliness, because aside from Bailey, it was the most she'd seen Kolyat emotionally react to anyone. And Shepard's exaggerated clinginess was almost…comforting. Like a sibling's.
Her throat went dry at the thought.
"I'm fine, Shepard." He seemed to have resigned himself to being in Shepard's headlock for eternity and only slumped further into the bench, grumbling beneath his breath.
"I missed you, kid," she answered softly, her smile tender.
Kolyat raised a brow her way. "You're going soft."
She shrugged. "Hmm. Maybe."
Oriana suddenly felt completely out of sorts to be witnessing such a moment. She shifted uncomfortably in her seat, her food and datapad forgotten. She folded her hands awkwardly in her lap.
Finally, Shepard released the surly drell and nudged him in the shoulder. He yanked his arm away from her and glared, but there was a gentleness about it to Oriana. An intimacy.
She never thought she'd envy the drell anything.
But watching the two made her chest ache with something unnamable.
"Actually, I do have a small request," the commander said, leaning an elbow on the table and propping her chin in her palm.
"Of course you do," he drawled, rolling his eyes.
She smiled tenderly at the drell beside her, and when she spoke, there was a sudden caution to her voice, her shoulders tensing minutely. "You still got that prayer book your father gave you?"
There was a long moment of silence between the three and Oriana looked at Kolyat to find him staring at her, both lids blinking quickly, his teal-scaled brow knotted together in consternation. His stare was instantly uncomfortable, and she felt the unexplainable urge to push from their table and run. Just run and never come back. She glanced down finally.
Shepard's voice was soft and understanding then, her free hand tracing circles on the table's surface. "You probably don't have it. What am I thinking? I just…Joker's been having a rough time of it since EDI died and I thought maybe…maybe it could help. Sure helped me. I think…I think your dad knew a lot about living with grief." She trailed off, her gaze drifting off past the table and when Oriana looked up at her there was a glazed look to her eyes that told her she was miles away. Lost somewhere she might never share.
"I have it."
His answer was so low Oriana almost missed it. And nothing had thrown her more. Hadn't he raged against anything to do with his father? Hadn't he grown irrational and temperamental and heated at Thane's very mention? And yet, he kept this prayer book. This memory of his father.
Oriana blinked in surprise at the drell and noticed that he had not altered his stare. He sat, unmoving, watching her with a sort of challenge to his eyes, a sort of demand. She couldn't be sure what for but something inside her told her that this meant something. This was something important that she was witnessing. This was an unspoken offering between them. The first chance at honesty and vulnerability between them.
She suddenly felt incredibly unworthy of such a weight, such a trust.
She didn't want to know about his twisted relationship with his father, because then she might actually have to give a damn about him.
Shepard studied the drell quietly a moment, prosthetic finger tapping along her chin. She sighed and pulled back from the table, stretching her arms in front of her. "Think I could borrow it?"
He finally lowered his gaze from Oriana's, eyes shifted to the table. "Sure."
He had never sounded so small to Oriana before. She couldn't be sure why it made her so upset to hear him like that.
"Thanks, kid." Another nudge to his shoulder. "I'll return it on my next trip to the Citadel."
"You can keep it."
"I said I'll return it," she repeated, voice sure and unquestionable this time, hand sliding over his shoulder in a motion of comfort that was alien to Oriana.
He only nodded his response.
Shepard smiled at him one last time before turning her attention to Oriana. "You've been good, Ori?"
She opened her mouth but found the words lodged in her throat.
Suddenly, Miranda flashed before her eyes. Her back as she walked away. The hot sting of tears that followed the emptiness.
She didn't want to remember that, and she couldn't explain it, so instead, she offered a weary smile and asked the commander, "More importantly, what's been going on with you, Shepard?"
The older woman seemed to take the hint and didn't push. She dropped her hands to her thighs and rubbed them absentmindedly. "Oh, you know. Near death, actual death, deathliness and all that." Her tone was casual and joking but there was a tension to her voice that belied her calm. She swallowed audibly and waved it off. "Earth's a bit of a wreck right now. Not much better than this place, I imagine," she commented, looking around the run-down cafeteria.
"And your crew?"
Shepard allowed herself a small smile. "Mostly intact. Garrus never left my side while I was hospitalized down in London, and now that I'm cleared to fly, well, we're going back to Palaven. He's been anxious to find his sister."
Oriana's heart fluttered momentarily at the word 'sister' and she noticed Shepard look away.
There was so much unspoken between them it was like a rock in her gut.
"And…and Miranda?" It took all she had in her to say the name. She thought she might split and fracture right there on the bench.
"We're still looking, Ori." Shepard's hands came up to the table as though she wanted to grasp the younger woman's. But Oriana kept them held stiffly in her lap, and the commander slowly drew away.
Kolyat eyed her curiously. She kept her gaze adamantly clear of his.
Oriana cleared her throat. "I suppose I might get word before you," she chuckled humorlessly, shoulders jerking in a single, nonchalant-like shrug that was anything but.
"Maybe," the commander mused.
Another long silence stretched out between them. And then Shepard pushed off from the bench and planted her hands on her hips. "Look, I'll be here for a couple days. I want to see you, Kolyat. You free tonight?"
He shook his head with resigned exhaustion. "Sure. Whatever."
Shepard beamed and nodded to herself. "Alright, I'll hit you up later." She gave a comical salute. "Well, I'll be seeing you, kiddos," she promised Kolyat, winking.
He regained his usual scowl and drawled up at her, "You know, you don't have to check up on me."
She cocked her head and gazed affectionately at him. "I promised your dad I'd keep an eye on you."
"Yeah, well, it's not like he's going to find out. He's dead, you know?"
Oriana frowned at the casualness with which he said it, but Shepard seemed to wave it off with an indifferent familiarity.
"Besides," she continued, as though the drell hadn't just dismissed her, "I want to." She smiled down at him one last time and then leaned in before he could stop her and planted a smacking kiss on his cheek. He spluttered and tried to shove her off but she was already pulling back, laughing.
"Ugh, you're disgusting, Shepard." He wiped at his cheek and gave her a horrified look.
Oriana tried to smother the smirk crossing her lips.
Shepard chucked a thumb back toward the way she came. "I'll tell Uncle Garrus you said hi, shortstack. He's waiting at the precinct."
"Gods, woman, just leave." He turned sulkily to the table, effectively putting his back to her.
The older woman threw a charming smile down to Oriana. "Keep him out of trouble, will you?"
Oriana rolled her eyes and scoffed, but it was good-naturedly, and suddenly much lighter than she'd felt these last couple months working with the drell. "I'll try."
Shepard smiled one last time, waved, and then was off. "Chin up, guys. Chin up."
They watched her go. Silence descended upon them again. Oriana shifted awkwardly in her seat and glanced at Kolyat, who kept glaring at the table. After long moments of nothing but the dim sound of their surrounding co-workers, Oriana sighed and picked up her datapad once more, ready to return to work, a little unnerved, if not entirely disconcerted.
And then he spoke. "I didn't know you knew the Commander, too." It was said without expectation, without accusation.
She drew her bottom lip into her mouth and watched him. He was looking off to where Shepard had disappeared behind a crowd of bodies.
"Yeah, she…she saved me." It was all she could say. And it was all that mattered, really.
Kolyat released a soft noise that was not quite a chuckle and not quite a snort. And then the corner of his lip twisted up, just slightly, just barely enough to be called a smirk.
It halted the breath in her lungs.
"She does that, huh?" he breathed, gaze longing on the space Shepard once occupied. And then his brows furrowed sharply and his face dropped, a hidden pain pulling at his features.
She could only watch him.
Without her realizing it, some distant, stubborn part of her – a part she would have gladly silenced right then and there had she known what it would mean – suddenly felt something. Something kindred. Connected. Shared.
And she was the kind of girl that had to admit that if Commander Shepard saw something in this boy then maybe, just maybe, it was something worth seeing.
She just hated that she couldn't unsee it.
The main processing center located in Cross-section H of Rakasi Ward's Section 12 was a collection of booths and desks scrounged up from all of the abandoned businesses along the ward. Said businesses and buildings had since been turned into temporary housing units for the refugees, becoming one of the most populated areas of the Citadel. The Victims Tracing Department set up shop in one of the main courtyards of the ruined shopping district, setting up terminals and manned search consoles throughout the area, and using the cross-section's main power facility, a building just off the courtyard and past the occupied buildings, for Oriana's communications hub. From that building, she could access the other smaller processing centers along the rest of the wards and trade information, as well as contact ships and planets as far out as the Argos Rho and the Artemis Tau clusters, though asari space was still just out of reach. Reports were flooding in every hour with new information on the deceased and the missing. There were technicians in what Oriana had dubbed the "Comm. Hub" every hour of the day, taking shifts to sort through the mass amounts of information flooding in and to upkeep maintenance on the fragile power grid supplying the whole sector.
In the open courtyard where refugees flocked to find out about their loved ones, there were several booths set up. They had started to organize the camps into sub-sectors and building numbers, keeping track of family names residing in each camp for easier searching. Family members were assigned to whichever processing center was closest to their current residence and many of them waited hours in line to be seen. There were thousands of refugees being serviced by only a handful of agents at a time, and cross-section H slowly became constantly over-crowded with the waiting survivors. There was an endless sea of people out past the courtyard, so that any time Oriana visited the main processing center, her vision blurred over the horizon and her chest ached. Because it never seemed to end. There was always someone searching. Always someone missing. She wondered if this job would ever truly be finished.
"How's the grid holding today?"
Oriana looked up at Kolyat's question, watching as he pushed out from the huddle of C-Sec agents changing shifts along the booths. He waved farewell to Jetal and a human agent she also knew to be from Precinct 12, Duskin she believed, before stepping up beside her, locking his hands behind his back and looking out over the horde of refugees just on the other side of the booths.
"It's doing its job," she answered tiredly, rubbing a hand down her face. She hadn't slept the night before, trying to piece together a proposal for Bailey concerning counseling facilities across the wards. There were too many people getting the wrong answer and the wave of grief and desperation in the camps was becoming palpable. She didn't believe the job was over with finding the whereabouts of lost loved ones. It continued on. Providing counseling services was only the next plausible step to Oriana.
Kolyat glanced at her beside him, noting the weary look on her face, the hunch of her shoulders, the disheveled hair. He raised a brow at her. "You look like shit, Lawson."
She threw a threatening glare his way and sighed, bracing her hands on her hips. "Remind me why I put up with you," she groaned.
He smiled cheekily at her. "I've got word from the volus embassy."
Her eyes shot up to his at that. "Any word on their transports?"
Kolyat reached down into one of the large pockets along the pant-leg of his uniform and pulled out a datapad, handing it over to her. "Four out of the eleven ships from Talis Fia are accounted for and already on their way to the Citadel."
Oriana's eyes saddened as she took the pad and began to review the information. "Only four?"
He grunted his affirmation.
She was quiet for many moments, sifting through the information.
He didn't know why he felt the need to say something (alright he did, and the reason was called Bailey) and so his voice was stilted when he spoke. "They could have lost a lot more ships, Lawson. Talis Fia was hit hard pretty earlier on. But there's no guarantee the other ships didn't make it. They may simply be out of contact range or damaged."
Pausing her fingers on the pad, Oriana glanced back up at him. "What's with the sudden 180? Where's your usual pessimism?"
"Would you rather I tell you they're all dead?"
"Don't be so insensitive," she chided, pained at the words.
Kolyat looked out over the bustling crowd before them, the constant whirl of voices and cries slowly becoming ambient background noise. "Sometimes the not knowing is worse than anything definitive."
She gave him an odd look, breath stilled in her throat. "What do you mean?"
He sighed, exasperated. "You see all these people?" He swept a hand out with the question. "They wait hours each day for some shred of information on their loved ones. Whether they made it to the Citadel or not, where they're at, if they even survived. Because without that closure – and believe me when I say that even learning they all died is closure – then you just drift in this sort of…limbo. This precipice of grief that's never fully realized. And it's utterly exhausting to live your life like that. Sometimes you just…you wish you knew, even if it's not what you want to hear, so that you can just stop. Just stop and breathe and finally cry about it. And not hold it in like a breath burning your lungs." He stuffed his hands in his pockets and looked down at his boots. "Sometimes I think I might have gotten off easy, compared."
Oriana pressed her lips together at his words and looked at her hands. She was silent for a long time, and then, "You mean with your father?" she said carefully.
He stiffened and looked at her out of the corner of his eye. "I thought we weren't talking about family," he said tightly.
She looked off to the crowd, her hands slipping to her sides, fingers gripping the datapad with unease. "It's all we talk about really. In a roundabout sort of way. I mean, it's what we do."
Kolyat watched her but didn't answer. Some part of him wanted to shut down the line of thought right there, because she was the last person he'd think to dredge up that history with. After all, what did she know? This idealistically naïve girl. What could he say that she'd find even remotely relatable? But then that's when the other – smaller and less insistent – part of him kicked in. Because he remembered Bailey's words.
"Have you even tried to get to know her, Krios? You two are a lot more alike than you might think."
He inwardly scoffed at the memory. It was so ridiculous. They were so far apart from each other they couldn't even measure the distance between them. Couldn't even glimpse the other on the far side of the chasm. It was pointless. They would never understand each other. More importantly, he didn't want to understand her.
And he would never admit that it was because it hurt too much to think that they could understand each other.
It was in the way she looked out across the crowd, her lip caught between her teeth, her dark brows furrowed in thought, her short hair cupping her cheeks. Even in her back, curled forward with the weight of exhaustion, and the way her hands held tightly to the datapad. It was in the way she fell asleep in the conference room most nights, pouring over reports. It was in the way her eyes glazed over when she updated the casualties list, and the way her smile never made it all the way to her eyes when she spoke with anyone. The way her sighs seemed so heavy and so bone-weary that he grew exhausted just looking at her.
It was the way she slinked off to her barracks in the middle of the night when he finally managed to drag her from the precinct. The way she mumbled her 'goodnight' as she slowly slid the door shut before him. The way she didn't look him in the eye.
The way the silence clawed at him when he stood staring at her door wondering where the fuck it had all begun to change.
Wondering when he began to notice pain in her every motion, every feature, every word. There was loss there he couldn't deny anymore. And that's what scared him more than anything.
Of everyone there, maybe she could understand the most. And maybe that was why she was here.
But damn if he'd be the one to say it.
"I lost my parents too, you know."
He was so surprised by her small voice and his attention swerved so tightly to her that he almost tripped over himself, blinking rapidly in impatience for her to continue.
She sighed, looked down at the datapad in her hand, spread her fingers over the screen in thought. "My…biological father…he created me. In a petri dish. I was a clone."
What the fuck?
Kolyat narrowed his eyes at her, suddenly still, suddenly taut in anticipation. He didn't speak.
She blew a nervous breath through her lips and looked back out over the crowd, cradling the datapad to her chest. "Long story short, my sister, another clone before me, well, she saved me. Took me from Henry Lawson when I was a babe and delivered me to these…wonderful, beautiful people, the Shaws. My parents."
If he looked closely he could see the wetness dotting her eyes but he didn't comment on it.
"I had a good life, for a while. Until my father found me again and…and then the Reaper War and…" She stopped, swallowed thickly and licked her lips. She pulled a deep breath in. "He killed them. Just across the hall from me. So that I could hear them and…and I think I was ready to die just then. I think I would have been fine if it all ended that moment. But it didn't."
She finally looked at him and all the breath halted in his chest. She had this look of pained resignation on her face, her eyes wet with unshed tears, but she didn't blink. Didn't look away. After a moment, he was the one to drag his gaze from hers.
He didn't realize how utterly horrible it would feel to see her looking that way.
"Miranda saved me then. Killed my father in front of me and brought me to the Citadel. And then…she took off. Went to fight the Reapers on Earth. I…haven't heard from her since."
He stared at her with accusation in his eyes. He couldn't help it. He tried to figure out if she was lying. If this was all some grand deception to garner his sympathy. And if it was, then this chick had one unbelievably fucked up mind. But then, who would make that kind of shit up? And who would say it with such a straight face? And really, was it so impossible with the things he had seen in the war?
He wanted so desperately for her to be lying. Wanted so desperately to be able to write her off as the aggravating, self-righteous woman he'd always seen her as. Because he wasn't ready for things to change. For things to get this heavy this quick. He was already drowning in his own shit, already just trying to keep his head above water.
Too much. It was too much to think that it was real.
But when she looked at him…
It all felt into place. And he hated how it all made sense suddenly, how everything since day one seemed to come into starkly lit clarity. Oriana was fulfilling this desperate need to find her sister once more, to comfort herself that there was hope still. That it couldn't be over like that. Not like that. Not with her alone in this broken universe. Anything but that.
Kolyat knew a little bit about being alone. He could tell it to you in a hundred different ways and it'd still be the same story. Mother dies. Father leaves. Father stays gone.
Because that little attempt at a reconciliation in the end, when his father was gasping for breath and so bright-eyed about the past, so fucking regretful, so…so senselessly hopeful (because there was no hope, not for any of them, not for him, or his son, or any living thing that ever heard the word 'Reaper' – because yes, Kolyat recognized the end when he saw it) – that wasn't him coming back.
That was him reaffirming why he stayed gone.
Looking at Oriana, just…looking at her…was enough to dredge it all up. Because he always saw this girl who had a smiling childhood, full of scraped knees and Sunday dinners and bedtime stories (and yeah, it's true, she had all that, she had all that and more) but now he knew how violently it was ripped from her.
He began to wonder if maybe being alone for so long was a blessing. Maybe starting out so young, so jaded, was an advantage. Because he was ready for that kind of hurt, when his father came back into his life, and then again when he died – his hand in his wasn't the warmth he needed, still needed, but it was all he could get.
But this girl.
He shook his head at the thought. Why was she always 'girl' in his thoughts? Why was it always 'little' and 'naïve' and 'stupid'?
He saw his own young self in her sometimes. So eager. So determined.
He saw the person he might have been. And oh, how he had resented her for it. How he had hated that someone like her could exist (when someone like him was all he knew).
But that wasn't fair. Not to her. And not to him either. Because she wasn't who she was in the face of all she survived, she was who she was because of it.
And that was the difference between them.
Hardship made her a better person.
But it only made him lesser.
Her image came back into focus as she peered up at him.
There was this finality to her words, he realized, as though she didn't expect to hear from her sister again. As though she had accepted the lot that fate had given her, gracefully, if not a little brokenly.
It made him grind his teeth and clench his hands into fists.
How stupid. How utterly selfish and inane and…so fucked up. To have thought she couldn't understand. To have thought her this pristine, self-righteous, ignorant little girl.
To think he was the only one who knew pain.
"I'm sorry," she said, wiping at her eyes, drawing a deep breath in and holding it, and then exhaling slowly, her fingers uncurling around the datapad against her chest, her lids fluttering closed. "I didn't mean to dump that on you. I just…it's been a hard few weeks out here."
Kolyat opened his mouth, then shut it. Opened it again. And nothing seemed to sound right in his head. Nothing seemed to be enough.
She glanced back up at him, a tender smile breaking at her lips.
Never reaching her eyes.
It was becoming too recognizable for his liking.
She nodded once, a quiet dismissal, and then turned to leave. He caught her elbow and she looked up at him in surprise. He was staring down at the floor, his dark eyes focused and intent. Her breath caught in her throat at his still silence.
When he looked up at her, his face was solemn and indecipherable. "That's…really shitty."
She looked taken aback by his statement, and even he seemed surprised at the words that left him.
That's really shitty? Really? That's what comes out of his mouth?
He let go of her elbow and shoved his hands into his pockets, looking back down at the floor, a look of frustration crossing his features.
Oriana just stared at him.
"I…miss my father, too." He wanted to swallow the words back as soon as they touched air but there they hung between them. Kolyat pressed his boot into the floor and watched the dark leather bunch around his toes.
"I miss my father too."
What did that even mean? And was it even true?
He thought…
He thought maybe it was.
And that scared him more than anything.
She blinked at him, mouth working to form words that never came.
He pursed his lips in aggravation, eyebrows sharpening down in his usual scowl. "Your sister, I hope you find her." And then he turned and walked away.
Oriana was left staring at his back.
He couldn't turn around. Couldn't answer the wave of Iranis as she came in through the guard entrance. Couldn't sift through the voices overwhelming the center. Couldn't even find his way back to his barracks.
He drifted through the crowd, without destination, without thought. He simply…walked on.
And he suddenly realized how utterly fucked he was, how deep he had fallen.
Because he had cared.
In that fraction of a second, when she had looked at him, really looked at him and held nothing back – when she was on the verge of fucking tears and no amount of pride could hold them back – when he had seen her face (maybe for the first time) and recognized something that hadn't made his heart ache since a barren hospital room, his father's name on his chapped lips –
He had cared beyond words.
And that changed everything.
*end Part One*