The Citadel, 2163.
When it came to the classics, Hannah believed you needed to start early.
"That was awesome, Mom!" Eliza crowed as they left the movie theater. "I mean, it was old and kind of corny, but —" She shook herself, grinning gap-toothed up at Hannah, and started sweeping her left arm in wide arcs, making lightsaber noises.
Hannah grabbed Eliza's right hand and tugged her back against her side; the foot traffic in this part of the Citadel wasn't heavy, but still thick enough to lose an easily-distracted nine-year-old in. Especially if the nine-year-old in question was busy trying to breathe like Darth Vader.
"I'm glad you liked it, sweetie," said Hannah, squeezing Eliza's hand. "Hungry? We can go to that noodles place you like, the one that has the blue spices."
"Okay." Eliza frowned slightly as they crossed the lobby and turned a wide, innocent blue gaze on Hannah, her high ponytail sweeping over her shoulders. She reached back to rub her amp port, a new habit that Hannah had already given up on breaking. "Mom, you said there were only three Star Wars movies, but that sign said —"
"Must have been a misprint," Hannah interrupted, adding the white lie to the total and wincing a little. No one who's seen episode one through three can blame me for lying, she decided, and stepped out into the flow of traffic. "We can watch the next two on the vidscreen when we get home," she offered. "The next one is the best, but I think you're going to like the third one most. It has these little guys called Ewoks and —"
Someone bumped into Hannah from behind, knocking her hand out of Eliza's and nearly sending her sprawling on the floor. If she had been in New York, she would have shoved back, snarling watch it, asshole at whoever was at fault, but then a voice hissed in her ear, and all thoughts of shoving or insults were forgotten.
"Your kid's a freak," said the voice. "A fucking freak."
Hannah snapped upright, already wheeling on the speaker. A towering human man glared down at her, all sculpted lips and perfectly-styled blonde hair, his gaze glittering cold and malevolent with disgust.
Oh, Hannah knew the type. Used to people letting his opinions slide because he was strong and good-looking, or maybe just because he was male. She didn't know the details, but she knew him, and back in the Reds, they had their own ways of dealing with people like him. She wasn't a Red any longer, she was Alliance to the bone, but this bastard hadn't insulted her or the uniform. He'd insulted Eliza, and she felt her old armor sliding into place: a glare that made men twice her size back down, bracing her feet to take the first hit, and thumbing on the micro-fabricator on her omnitool. Sensing a fight, or at least a show, a small crowd started to gather around them, eyes eager. Hannah felt the urge to scream at them — hey, you want to watch, or you want to get out of the way so I can get my kid away from this piece of shit? — but no one moved, no one said a word. She growled, backing toward the edge of the crowd, and met the man's eyes without flinching.
"Back off," she snapped, teeth bared and cheeks flushed hot. "Or I'll kick your teeth out through your asshole."
"Mom!" Eliza yelped, shocked. Hannah took her eyes off the man for a handful of seconds to check on Eliza, who stared at her wide-eyed and pale, her mouth hanging open as she clung to Hannah's left hand.
The man, momentarily stunned by Hannah's sudden viciousness, leapt when he saw her distracted. "Big talk," he said through a laugh, perfect white teeth on display. Hannah bristled, torn between staying true to her word or getting Eliza out of there, and had just decided on the latter when the man took a step closer. "But I guess I'd talk big too, if I was walking around with my own personal bomb." He nodded at Eliza, who had gone so pale even her lips were white, and smirked when she took a step closer to Hannah. "Like I said, a freak."
Eliza made a small noise, almost a whine, and reached back to touch her amp. Hannah watched the connection form: her amp. A freak. The amp made her a freak. Freak, said Eliza's blank gaze. I'm a freak.
Forget smashing his teeth down his throat and out the other end; Hannah was going to murder him. Two seconds, that's all it would take to fabricate an omniblade, and —
"Mommy, no!" screamed Eliza, tugging on Hannah's hand as she took a step into the man's personal space. Eliza's voice broke on the last word, and then Hannah heard the air crackle with rich static as all the hairs on her body stood on end, and gravity upended itself.
She hit the floor face-first, and blacked out.
"Commander Shepard?"
Hannah waved the medic away as the C-Sec officer approached. Other than a bitch of a headache, she was fine. Well — fine, except for the greasy, anxious twist in her stomach, when she turned her head to the right and saw Eliza's feet poking out from under a grey shock blanket. As Hannah watched a second medic gently touch Eliza's amp, checking for damage from the flare, Eliza closed her eyes. She huddled deeper in the blanket, hiding her face.
Shame replaced the anxiety, swift as a flash flood. How the hell could she have overreacted so badly? She was a grown woman, a mother, for God's sake. She couldn't start fights — hell, she couldn't finish them now. I need to be smarter, she thought, misery settling over her in a bleak cloud.
"Commander Shepard?" said the officer again. A turian, tall and dark-plated, with clay-red markings. "I'll be as quick as I can. I just need you to answer a few questions."
Hannah nodded. "I should have walked away," she muttered. "Stupid. So fucking stupid."
The officer's mandibles shifted in what might have been annoyance, or confusion. "There's no question, ma'am," he said, in a kinder voice than she expected. "None of this was your fault. The other human was the obvious aggressor."
"Yeah?" Hannah sighed. "Maybe, but I shouldn't have let it get so far, I should have —" She saw Eliza's shoulders start to shake, and stood up. "Excuse me, I need to —"
She ignored the officer calling her name and crouched next to Eliza, nodding at the medic. "Sweetie, hey, breathe it out —"
"He called me a freak," Eliza said, her voice still muffled by the blanket. "Because I've got…because I'm a b-biotic." Hannah heard her take a deep, shaky breath, then Eliza lifted her head. Her eyes were distant, fixed on a point just over Hannah's shoulder. Sometimes, after a bad flare, Eliza withdrew into herself like this, tearless and bleak, and more than her rare tantrums, these moments terrified Hannah. She had no idea how to save Eliza from them, no way to distract her. No way to reach Eliza, because in these moments her daughter closed herself off and retreated to heal herself alone.
Of all the nightmares Hannah had had since she brought Eliza home, the one she had the most was of Eliza not coming back from this retreat. She felt the chill in her gut, like a thick, sluggish snake, and hugged Eliza close, kissing the top of her head, her ear, her cheek, whatever she could reach.
"You're not a freak, sweetie," she whispered. "He was wrong, do you hear me? He didn't know what he was talking about. He was a bad man and he's in a lot of trouble now." So am I, she thought, as the C-Sec officer shifted from foot to foot, angular face unreadable as he watched them. "I'm so sorry, sweetie. I shouldn't have said anything to him. I'm sorry."
"He saw my amp," said Eliza, in a dull voice. "Everyone can see it now. They're all going to know." She huddled into her blanket, eyes on the floor. "It's not fair," she said, and closed her eyes.
Eliza was gone, locked deep in that vast, occluded, unknowable space lurking in her head. Hannah pulled her into her lap, and Eliza came without resistance, like a rag doll, like a bundle of matchsticks, and said nothing while Hannah quietly answered the officer's questions.
I could call Lamia,, thought Hannah, staring at the terminal in their quarters. They had made it back to the Kaku without incident, Eliza walking silently at Hannah's side, her hair spread over her shoulders in a heavy, dark curtain. Hannah had a meeting first thing the next morning with the XO, no doubt to go over the report sent over from C-Sec, but she couldn't muster up any dread regarding it. Not when Eliza sat on the couch, paper-pale and silent, staring at her hands.
When Hannah glanced at her, Eliza heaved a sigh that shook her narrow shoulders and rubbed her nose with the back of her hand.
"Want something to eat, sweetie?" said Hannah, turning her back resolutely on the terminal. She had to save Lamia for when things were at their worst; the asari was busy with the first group of human biotics, and while Hannah didn't doubt she would spare the time, Hannah didn't want to turn her into a crutch. Lamia's help was the last resort. As long as Hannah had a chance of pulling Eliza out of her funk on her own, she wouldn't call.
"No thank you," said Eliza, too polite for Hannah's taste. She would have preferred an eye roll, or a duh Mom, I'm always hungry. Then, before Hannah could ask if she wanted a drink, or to watch a vid, Eliza turned her bright, pale gaze on her and said "What do I do, if people are afraid of me?"
Too canny by half, Hannah mused as she dropped on to the couch next to Eliza. "They're not all afraid of what you can do," she said, taking Eliza's thin hand in hers and squeezing it, her heart aching at the feel of the fragile bones in her daughter's fingers. So very fragile, her daughter, like all children. But more resilient than expected, too, like all children. Hannah didn't doubt that Eliza would weather this, young and bird-boned as she was, but after such a catastrophic mistake on her part, it was more important than ever that Hannah give her the tools to do so. "And if they are afraid, they're idiots. Biotics are new, and not a lot of people understand them, but being scared of something new is for idiots."
Eliza gave her a wan smile, but it disappeared almost immediately, replaced by a frown — Eliza's thinking frown, Hannah thought with relief. "But what do I do?" she asked. "I can do all this stuff, but…" She huffed and flopped back against the couch, knees knocking together.
Hannah let go of Eliza's hand and ran her fingers through Eliza's hair. "You do the right thing," she said. "You don't listen to the idiots, you don't start fights —" Not like your dumbass mother did "— and you figure out how you can help people. It's an advantage, sweetie, even if people can't see that now, and you use advantages to help people, right?"
"Right," said Eliza, still frowning. Her hand crept up to touch her amp, but as Hannah watched, Eliza clenched her hand into a fist and let it drop to her lap. "Even if they're scared of me?"
"Especially if they're scared of you," said Hannah, cupping the back of Eliza's head in the palm of her hand. Such a fragile thing. The depth of her love terrified her; she had killed before, on orders from the Reds and the Alliance, but never before on instinct, because something she loved was threatened. I would have done it, too, she thought, rubbing her thumb in absent circles on Eliza's scalp. I'd have killed him and all he did was talk. "Because then they'll see all the good you do, and they won't be scared anymore. They'll trust you."
Eliza sighed and finally, finally relaxed against Hannah's side, curling close. "The way you do," she said, her voice slow and thoughtful. "Like the Alliance does."
A sliver of unease passed through Hannah's gut, feather-light and sharp, oh so very sharp. It was gone before she could analyze the why of it, and she pulled Eliza close. "That's one way," she said, and kissed Eliza's head.
