T[[hanks to everyone who's been keeping up with the story since I've started updating again! I'm sorry to do this to you guys, but I've posted a chapter in the middle of the story now, too. It's a bit of a buildup of Kelly and Harsin's relationship. It should be listed as Chapter 6 now. Please feel free to go back and read it - there's an extra character introduced in there who's mentioned in this chapter. I figured I needed to make things a bit more gradual and realistic, and hopefully this helped! Again, thank you for all your lovely reviews and views.]]
When Kelly woke up the next morning, Harsin was gone. She assumed he must have gone to work, but the lack of his body in her bed felt strange, as if last night weren't the first they had spent together. The place in the bed where he had laid was still imprinted. The psychologist wondered if he had needed to pry her off of him, gently lay her head down on the pillow. She was still in pain, but her sleep hadn't been difficult, even if she had lain in a strange position. As she slowly, painfully slowly, dragged herself to the edge of her bed, she noticed a datapad on the bedside table. Is this Harsin's? she thought to herself, picking it up. No, it was hers. But written on it was a message from Harsin.
Had to go to work. I'll come back later with lunch. Try to relax today.
She grinned, glad she had such a wonderful friend to bring her meals when she didn't have the ability to get her own. Kelly relaxed herself back onto the mountain of pillows at the headboard, her stomach grumbling for breakfast. She wished that she wasn't in so much pain, that she was able to move herself across the room. Glancing at the bedside table again, the redhead realized that Harsin had left one of her protein bars sitting beside where the datapad had been. He thinks of everything, she thought to herself. Salarians were known to be intellectually superior to humans. Their minds and metabolisms worked more quickly, which is why their lifespans were so short. She wondered if that made them more thoughtful, made them better companions.
Kelly settled in to watch a game show vid from back on Earth. The broadcasts didn't come often, so they were mostly episodes of the show she had seen before, but she seemed to welcome notions of home more openly than she ever had before. Chomping on the strangely textured bar, she felt her stomach fill. She wondered what Harsin would bring back. She had expressed her love for Italian food, but she had also found several types of salarian cuisine to her liking, as well. It was a strange combination of flavors – often bland fruits mixed with tropical spices, with a tinge of sweetness in the aftertaste.
About halfway through the day, there was a knock at Kelly's door. She assumed it was Harsin, and yelled, "Come in!" The green complexion she expected didn't appear though – instead, it was the grey-blue skin of Cepol, the salarian who had taken them out to the bar what felt like forever ago.
"Oh, Cepol," Kely said, grimacing as she shifted on the bed. "I didn't know it was you, I would have come to answer the door."
"Don't worry about it. Harsin got wrapped up at work," the younger officer said, striding across the room in a few quick steps and handing her a box of takeout. The scent of Chinese food wafted upwards, and she smiled. It was better than nothing. "He told me you got hurt, and asked me to bring you food." The salarian sat on the edge of her bed, watching as she opened the box.
Kelly took a forkful of fried rice, shoveling it in to her mouth. She frowned while chewing. "Cepol, can I ask you something?" she began. It was strange, the salarian had made her feel so comfortable a month back, but now he just felt like a distant acquaintance, someone she had known a long time ago. "Before I went off-world, Harsin told me I was going to get hurt if I stayed with Cerberus, and then I did. Do you think-"
"I'm going to stop you right there, Kelly," Cepol butted in quickly, cutting her off. "I don't know anything about that, but I think it's best you talk to Harsin about it. He wouldn't uh… say something like that so lightly." He frowned.
"It wasn't lightly," Kelly responded, pausing only to scoop another bite of food into her mouth. "We actually argued about it a little."
"I'd still talk to him about it," the salarian responded, standing up, the subject clearly having made him uncomfortable. "Anyway, I've got to get to work. I hope you get better soon." With a forced smile and a wave, he left, shutting the door firmly behind him.
Kelly was left alone with her thoughts again. She turned her eyes back to the vid hologram, but she found herself not focusing on what was happening on screen. Why could Harsin possibly have so much against Cerberus? Sure, they were a very adamantly pro-human group, and they had a bit of a colorful past. She'd even heard some people describe them as terrorist. But she'd been on the inside for a while now, and she had yet to see anything truly terrible directed towards aliens. In their Presidium office, they focused mainly on new recruits, on increasing their numbers and assigning everyone to a position they would excel at.
When Harsin returned later in the evening, Kelly greeted him with a smile. He had a takeout bag in one hand and a duffle bag in the other, and she looked at him questioningly. "Change of clothes," he explained hurriedly. The young woman's cheeks flushed as she realized he must have been planning on spending the night again. She didn't seem that needy, did she?
"How was your day?" she asked as the alien became settled on her bed, handing her a container of food. It was a salarian dish, some sort of salad with plants she wasn't easily familiar with. She dug in with gusto, thoroughly enjoying the new food she had been introduced to over the past few months.
"Busier than normal," he admitted, helping himself to his own food. "Sorry about lunch. Cepol didn't seem too pleased about running the errand for me." He flashed her a grin, and she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, swallowing.
"He didn't seem to pleased on my end, either," she giggled, but her face grew grave as she put her fork down. "Harsin, I need to ask you something."
"About Cerberus." So he knew. The salarian sighed, closing his eyes briefly before turning to her. "I didn't think you would get hurt so soon. I was worried you might have thought I had something to do with it." She looked at him expectantly.
"Well, I didn't!" he protested, raising his brow. "I'm sorry this happened to you. But I owe you the reason why I think you should leave Cerberus.
"My family, brothers and sisters of mine, were killed by the organization." Kelly's eyebrows furrowed as she tried to understand what he was saying. She thought Cerberus didn't get involved in alien affairs. Harsin continued. "I know what you're thinking. They're known for human experiments, sure, but not for terrorizing aliens. That's what all of us thought, too, until it happened.
"My brothers and sisters and a good handful of friends had gone off to scout a distant planet. Little did we know, Cerberus had set up a base right near where they landed. They stuck their noses in a little too close, and were captured. I think they were tortured in there, who knows how long. We found their bodies in the facility months later, dead. They never even sent out a distress beacon." Harsin was clearly having a rough time relaying this story. His breathing was labored, his eyes cast downward. Kelly wasn't sure she had ever seen a salarian outwardly show this much negative emotion, especially Harsin. He was normally more rigid, proper. It was difficult to see him like this.
"I used to work as a guard for the mines, but I knew I had to do something to avenge their death. I decided I would track down Cerberus, and I would start on the Citadel. I moved here with barely a word. Cepol was the only person I told the reason why, although I'm sure he wasn't the only one who had figured it out. I've been keeping an eye on Cerberus since day one, watching their new recruits, keeping my distance." He fixated on Kelly, and she made deep eye contact with him as he spoke. She wanted him to know she cared, that she supported his decisions. Who wouldn't?
"I was doing fine, until you came along. I had to clean up another delinquent recruit, and then you showed me you had caring. You had a soft heart. You wanted to get to know me." He scoffed. "At first, I thought you were trying to spy on me. For some reason, I had figured Cerberus had discovered why I was here. Why I worked so closely to them, why the officers under my control had run-ins with them so constantly. I was worried they wanted to take me out.
"You got close to me, and then I was worried they wanted to take you out, too." He held his face in his hands. "I'm still worried."
"Harsin," Kelly crooned softly, placing a hand on his shoulder and leaning in towards him. "I was hurt, but it wasn't by anyone who was really a part of Cerberus. It was just… a coincidence." Harsin pulled away and shook his head, staring at his lap as if he were deciding his next move. He turned toward her again, and her heart quickened. His eyes were full of such intensity, such emotion, but she couldn't read exactly what they were. They locked eyes for an eternity before he spoke.
"Salarians don't feel love, Kelly. It's not in our biology. But I care deeply for you, and I would do anything to protect you. I would whisk you off this space station in a moment if I could. You say the word, and we'll be out of here," his voice cracked, and for a moment Kelly thought he might cry. "In a million years I never thought I'd care about something as much as I cared about this little revenge plot I thought I had against Cerberus, but I care about you more than that. I want you to be safe more than anything."
Again, Kelly thought back to that first day when she and Harsin had first met. She thought of the fate of that recruit, and of the recruit who had shot her. It seemed that anyone out to betray Cerberus might be in for a grisly death. If she left, she'd surely be tracked down. Her eyes filled with tears as she thought about the fate she might meet if she
"I care for you, too, Harsin," she choked out behind teary eyes. "I… I can't leave Cerberus. Not now. But I promise you, nothing bad will happen to me." She gave him a feeble smile, and he reached up a hand and brushed a tear off her cheek, seemingly fascinated by the bodily function of crying. "We'll figure something out, okay? You and me."
She leaned into him and sobbed as she thought of the things she had lost. She had lost her home, and now the prospect of the very job that had brought her out to the stars seemed hopeless. She didn't know what she was going to do. Harsin placed a hand on her back and stroked his fingers through her hair gently. He didn't seem to have much to say anymore.