Father settled her on the blue cushion, even though she gave him an almost indecipherable look. Thought I could read humans by now. She stared at the door as Father lowered himself and wrapped his arms around her. Those arms served as more than just protection: he seemed to both guard and cage her; he kept her locked tight so she couldn't bolt to her freedom.
Fine, Father, keep me caged too. So long as she couldn't leave, he was stuck. What, by the eternal sea, was I thinking when I asked to meet her?
He sat and waited for her or for Father to speak, but after a century or two, the silence wormed its way into his ears, and rose to a crescendo, louder even than the children's playtime he supervised.
"How long will you be here, Father?"
"However long the gods will."
"Typical."
"Kolyat, I'm unsure. Much depends on what the Council decides, and how convincing Ellen can be."
"Years," she said, her voice hollow.
Father raised a brow and a rare, real smile brightened him. "Siha, you've convinced a quarian to work with a geth. I'm sure you will succeed."
"Just keep telling yourself that." A faint smile, but nothing close to even her earliest, most awkward fumblings.
More silence. More fixed glances at the door. Father hadn't relaxed his grip on Ellen at all, and his own gaze never strayed from Kolyat. It might have been a gaze, simple and almost gentle, but it bored into his mind with the same relentlessness of Kahje's spring rains. You want to force peace between us, don't you, Father? You won't let either of us leave until I accept her. And for that, the stewing began. The bubbling and searing of an undigested dinner returning as acid to the back of his throat. The same burning and chewing he'd felt when he'd tried to swallow at the sight of Father looming over Talid's crouched body. Father had never held Mother the way he held Ellen, with that same smug air of protectiveness he'd felt the moment Father had first teased her.
"Maybe you and Thane need some time alone," she said. "I should go."
"Siha, I've never known you to surrender so easily."
"This isn't a war, querido. Kolyat, for what it's worth, I'm really sorry for what I said. I… Mom always said, 'Think first, talk later,' but I've never been good at that."
"You're more the 'talk first' type. Figures."
"Took you this long to figure it out, hunh? Actually, I'm more 'act first.' Forget the whole talking thing. Takes too long." She gave him a rueful smile. "Not my best trait, really."
That much had been obvious from all the stories about her, but the self-reflection hadn't been. He didn't expect the sudden burst of warmth in his chest to burn away the acid in the back of his throat.
"What do you know about Mother?"
"Not much. Thane's told me a little about how he met Irikah, how he left you, how she was killed." She fidgeted in Father's grasp. A faint movement, but enough for him to know she hadn't told him everything.
"Spit it out."
"It's nothing, and I'll just piss you off all over again. That's the last thing I want to do."
Did humans have to be so damned stubborn? He'd gotten used to that with Bailey, and his relentless and endless pushing. You write your dad yet? What did he say? What did you say?
"You want me to accept your apology? Cough it up."
"Kolyat, perhaps this isn't the best…"
"Cut it out, Father. You've already shushed her once."
Father shook his head and his eyes seemed to beg Ellen not to speak. He must've insulted Mother. Just what I'd expect from him.
"He's right," she said. "I can't."
"You're protecting him. Why is it that you don't seem to mind making me mad, but you won't hurt him?"
"You think I enjoyed hurting you? Son of a… Look, most of the time I don't look before I shove my foot in my mouth, especially this time, when it made it all the way down my throat. Thane's tortured himself for years for what the hanar conditioned him to do, and I guess I didn't want him to live the pain all over again."
"Tortured himself for what?"
"For being an assassin when the hanar forced him into it before he was old enough to make a real choice. For failing you and Irikah, and for taking vengeance. For leaving you to do it."
"Maybe he should suffer, and maybe you're just making excuses for him. You're just a pale substitute for Mother, who tried to take him and make him honest."
"Koyat!"
Ellen flinched as much at Father's reprimand as she had at his accusations.
"So that's why you tried to emulate him, because you're 'honest.' Gotcha."
He reeled at her words. Mother would never forgive you. She'd look at you with that same mournful look in her eyes that she always had when Father was around.
"What do you want from me? You're not Mother. Not even close."
She jerked as if he'd slapped her.
"Kolyat, your mother would be appalled by your words."
"And you knew Mother well, all those times you left."
"Damn," Ellen said. "I'm not trying to be anything. Just a friend if you want one, and a nobody if you don't. But I'm not going to sit here and let you hurt Thane the way Irikah did. You have a right to be hurt and to be angry, but not to inflict your own wounds because you won't understand what your mother refused to accept."
"You're going to do something, hunh? Hurt me again? You've done enough already, Ellen."
"Siha," Father said, but whether his tone was one of warning or pleading, he couldn't tell.
"Fuck it. Your mother married an assassin, Kolyat. She knew he was an assassin from the moment they met, and she knew he had no choice. He was six. Hell, when I was six, I went to school and colored a lot, played tag, ran around like an idiot, and played vid games. She knew it, but she married him anyway. She made that choice, but couldn't live with the consequences. When Thane found out he was sick, what the hell did she say? Something about how it was the will of the gods, and that it was some kind of karmic retribution for being an assassin. What kind of bullshit is that? And because she made him hate himself for being what he was, he believed her. He still believes her."
She drew in a deep breath and let it out through pursed lips. He knew she expected some kind of outburst from him, but his own mind was too busy mulling over her revelation that Mother knew. She knew that Father was dying, but she never said a word. Why? Why wouldn't she tell me? And Ellen knew she knew even if he didn't. He had to find out his own damned father was dying from a complete stranger.
"Mother knew, Father?"
"Yes."
"And she never told me."
"We thought it best to wait until you were older and you could understand. My illness would not manifest for many years…"
"That doesn't excuse it!"
"I know this is a lot for you to process," Ellen said.
"Goddess of oceans, what do you know about what I'm thinking?" The moment the words came out, he knew just how stupid they sounded.
"All right. I'll just…"
"I want to know why you didn't tell me yourself, Father. Why you only left that box of documents behind. Why you wanted me to only have memories, and no Mother and no you."
Ellen tried to stand but Father held her down. Leaving now? That figures.
"No, you're staying. You've been defending him right and left, so you're going to listen and hear what he has to say. And you're going to tell me the truth, Father."
"Kolyat… Your mother… She was ashamed of what I did. Each time I went on assignment, she… I broke her heart anew, as if each time was the first. She shattered before me when I would tell her it was time to leave once more. I thought it best, once I cost her life itself, that you be kept safe and free from the taint of my sins."
"You were ashamed of what you did?"
"I have but one skill, Kolyat, and that is to take life, not to nurture it. You deserved better; the chance to grow away from the path I had been trained to follow."
"I didn't want 'better!' I wanted you!"
"I'm sorry," Ellen said.
At that moment, it didn't matter that Ellen had been nearly right about Mother's shaping of Father. Right then, it only mattered that he hated her as much as he hated Father for his weakness.
"You insulted Mother through some kind of misguided jealousy, and all you have to say is, 'Sorry?'"
"You're welcome to think that if it makes you feel better." And he hated himself for putting that note of hurt in her voice.
Why does this have to be so damned hard?
"Why should I think anything else? You hate her."
"I can't hate someone I know next to nothing about. I've just been where Thane has, and I know how much it hurts. The only thing I hate is what she said to him, and how it still haunts him."
Careful… "What are you talking about?"
"Irikah sounds like an idealist, you know, the kind of person who thinks the galaxy should be made of nothing but flowers and rainbows. It isn't, of course. It's dark and twisted and light and beautiful and confusing as all hell. But you want that vision of theirs to come true, and you want to make the galaxy that way for them. You want to be that bright, shining knight for them, but you can't, because you're just as confused as the galaxy is.
"You know what the worst feeling in the entire galaxy is? It's when someone comes up to you and pats you on the back for saving the Citadel, but all you can remember is that look of disappointment in your lover's eyes when you didn't save it with the right number of bunnies and kittens. There's nothing worse than knowing you can never be what they want, or do what they expect of you, because it just isn't in you. It's not their fault, and it's not your fault. But it kills you both inside."
He felt the hurt in her words and he imagined Mother's look of disappointment at his own inability to forgive her. This wasn't an old hurt, as Father's had been, or Mother's, tempered by time, and scabbed over after it had been reopened over and over and over again. Disappointment. Maybe she's right. Maybe they hurt each other, instead of Father destroying her all over again.
"This sounds recent."
"Yeah. A little too recent for my tastes."
"Why aren't you with him?"
"It's a long story, but… Well, Cerberus was the last straw for him. It didn't matter that I didn't have a choice if we were going to stop the Collectors, and it didn't matter if I'd rather be shot in the head than talk to the Illusive Man ever again. Not that I blame him. He apologized later and wanted to pick things up where they left off once the Collectors were gone, but I couldn't keep hurting both of us even if I wanted to."
"Hm. If it just hurts you both, why stay? Father?"
"You seem to believe that I agree with Ellen."
"You don't?"
"Your mother awoke me, Kolyat. I saw that there was far more to life than just killing."
"Because you have to stay. What drives you the craziest and hurts you the most is what you love the most in them. And you see their vision and their hopes for what they are: something better than what you've got. You want the galaxy to work the way they want it to, and you'd do anything to try to make it happen."
"Mother was… Well, she was a lot like you think. She could inspire, and she was the kindest person I've ever known. The most forgiving. I wish I could be like her. She…"
"She'd be honored by your love and your loyalty," Ellen said.
"I doubt it. I'm less than she was."
"And that's what's so damned annoying about idealists. You think you'll never be good enough to live up to what you think is their perfection. They might think you are, but you'll never allow yourself to believe it when you do something that doesn't fit with their picture of the galaxy. There's nothing wrong with you, Kolyat, and nothing wrong with your father."
"'You must strive to improve in everything you do.' Father said that to me."
"He's got a streak of the idealist in him too, but he's had to be more pragmatic because of what the hanar did to him."
"The hanar did nothing but honor me, Siha."
"See how I can piss off anyone without even trying?" A small laugh. "Anyway, if you'll accept it now, I'm really sorry."
"I guess so." It felt far too easy to smile at her.
"Good enough for me." She hadn't smiled at all for far too long, and it warmed him more than he wanted to admit. "Just remember this about Irikah and everyone else who clings to ideals no matter how the galaxy tries to prove them wrong: if we didn't have them, the galaxy would be a dark, horrible place, the kind of place you'd want the Reapers to obliterate."