Expel 10 sucked. There was no nice way to say it.

The music was flat, no real rhythm, just noise, but Kolyat knew that already. It had been the motivation to buy these tickets in the first place. It was getting hard to tell if it was the fans or the performers screaming shrilly and it was making his head hurt, but he had no place to go.

The Rut was a dive bar, deep in the lower wards were the seedier, unseemly element of the Citadel dwelled. The grizzled human bartender, a patch covering one of his eyes cast him an annoyed, cyclopic glare, while cleaning out a mug.

He'd said Kolyat had to buy something to sit there, what more did he want? He didn't even want to be here in the first place, which was turning out to be the theme of the night, but he wasn't ready to go home. He didn't know where else to go.

He'd just kept running, running until his lungs burned, his legs were sore. When he'd finally slowed down, his feet had brought him here. He had the tickets on him, so he went inside. It seemed as good a place as any. The occupants were thankfully, too enthralled by the "music" to pay him much attention and he was able to just blend in without incident.

Kolyat traced his fingers in the condensation gathered on his glass of water. Since he'd gotten here, he'd been doing a lot of thinking… What did he know about his father? It had been nagging him all night and the more he thought about it, the more he realized how little he knew.

Thane was a busy man, always away on business. No, that wasn't right. He was away on assignments; taking lives for money. That didn't seem to gibe with the man from his memories. He'd been a quiet man, who kept to himself, but that didn't keep him from showing kindness to others. Somehow those things didn't seem to go hand-in-hand.

He knew he loved his mother, to the point of spending part of the last decade hunting down those who had taken her life and that was the extent of his knowledge. He knew there had to be more to the man than that, but he wasn't sure he wanted to hear it.

What had it been like growing up under the hanar's tutelage? Not really knowing more than how to complete the task they set before him? Not having a choice? What about the scars? Those seemed to bother him more than anything else. Had he gotten them during his training? On a job? Injuries too serious to be healed completely with medi-gel, yet he'd never seen them before tonight. Surely his mother had to have seen them.

Kolyat was assaulted by the memory of his parents lying together on one of the rare occasions when he had walked on them. He'd been too young at the time to understand what was going on, but that did nothing to shield his mind from it now.

His mother had told him later, that it was a way adults had expressed loved for one another.

Love.His mother had loved Thane very much; and despite his frequent absence, he seemed like he loved her, too. If hunting down her killers wasn't a show of devotion, albeit a violent one, he wasn't sure what was.

Violent.That wasn't a word he would have associated with his father until now. He'd never been quick to anger or prone to act against another which made this that much tougher to wrap his mind around.

Did the man he thought he knew, that he grew up hating, even really exist? He rested his forehead against the heels of his upturned hands, looking down into the glass of water that rippled with the stomping of the concert goers' feet. The bartender cleared his throat loudly, glaring at Kolyat again.

"This ain't no sittin' room, kid," he said though the other stools stood empty. Kolyat huffed, without lifting his head to look at him. "You have any Tupari back there?"

"What do I look like, a vending machine?" the human grumbled, even as he produced a can and emptied it into a glass.

He slammed it down beside the abandoned water before he moved on to wipe down the rest of the counter.

Rude.

He sipped at his drink, his mind still spinning the same circles when he felt someone plop down in the seat beside him. He knew who it was without even looking.

"How'd you find me?"

"It's part of what I do. You didn't make it very hard."

No, he supposed he wouldn't have.

"Do you like this music?" Thane asked, visibly bothered by the shrieking of the lead singer.

"No, not really. I was just going to bring you hear because I thought you wouldn't like it."

"Hmm," Thane said, hailing the bartender. "You'd be right in that assumption. I can't say that I care for it."

Kolyat shrugged. One thing would go right after he stopped caring about that objective.

"Am I correct in assuming that that was the plan for this evening: for me to not enjoy myself?"

He didn't answer, staring down into his glass again. It sounded stupid when you said it out loud like that.

Thane was quiet and from the corner of his eye, Kolyat could see him trying to regain some semblance of his former self. "Why?" Thane asked gently, his voice trying to hide the hurt he felt, like when they'd first spoke after the assassination attempt.

The simple question stabbed at Kolyat, making him feel foolish all over again. He had been childish, immature. He knew that, but he wasn't sure how else he should act.

"I was angry with you, ok? I wanted you to just… Leave me alone. How do you just show up after ten years and tell me you're the reason mom is gone and that you're going to-going to…"

He cleared his throat to stave off the sob he could feel creeping up on him. "I thought it might have been better if you'd never shown yourself to me at all."

Thane was silent again. Kolyat hadn't meant for it to sound that harsh, but it was true. He'd asked him, so now he was just telling him the truth.

"But," he started again, his eyes still focused on the bar. "When I look at you, I remember mom and all the times you made her smile when you were with her. She loved you and despite everything she always forgave you for leaving… and making her cry and I feel like I could too." His voice a whisper, almost too embarrassed to get the words out.

He'd said his piece, though he wasn't sure what happened next. They sat in silence, Kolyat nervously pondering the underside of his fingernails.

"Thank you," was the soft reply.

Thane had insisted on seeing him home even though he was far worse off. He was having trouble walking in a straight line as they made their way to the taxi stand.

"Do you usually drink like that?" He could remember there being liquor in the house on special occasions or when they had company, but he never saw his father drink.

"No. Not at all," Thane said, trying to hold onto his balance, and failing miserably at it. "I thought if I was a little…" he paused, uncharacteristically at a loss for the words.

"Drunk?" Kolyat aided.

"No… Relaxed. If I was a bit more relaxed, it might be easier for you to talk with me."

"Yeah, well you relaxed yourself right out of your clothes."

"In hindsight, it wasn't the most well thought out plan. I apologize if my actions embarrassed you." He sounded apologetic, making Kolyat felt uncomfortable again. He'd only gotten as good as he gave.

"About that… Where did you learn to do that?" Stripping hardly seemed like it would be on the list of things an assassin should know. If he wanted to get to know him, it seemed like as good a place as any to start.

Thane was quiet a moment, as if trying to measure his words. "Well… I was recalling a time with your mother. We were newly married and she asked me to-"

"That's enough!" It was more than enough. He didn't need any more trauma this evening. "Don't worry about it. I'll probably never see any of those people again if I'm lucky."

"That makes two of us," Thane agreed. They'd both laughed at how terrible the evening turned out.

"Ah, I have something for you: A souvenir," Thane said as he stopped in his tracks. He patted his pants that looked pocket-less from where Kolyat was standing. He shook his coat in his search, loosening a few stray credit chits. Finally, he produced a folded up napkin from the depths of his coat and offered it to the younger drell who simply stared at it.

"Uh, thanks..?"

"Read it."

He warily unfolded the paper. It was from Limelight, more specifically, Versat. She'd scrawled her comm frequency and extranet mail address in large, bubbly handwriting.

"She was very insistent that I get this to you," Thane nodded knowingly as he swayed in place. "She really was a nice girl."

"Yeah."

Kolyat wrapped his arms around Thane's ribs, steadying him."Let's get you back to the Normandy."

The ship was still docked as far as Thane could tell, the engines idle.

He was back in life support, on his cot after having been deposited here by Kolyat. What a shameful evening, and he was paying for it now. His tongue felt dry and rough. His head throbbed so much that his vision almost blurred.

He sat up; the simple motion set his skull ablaze with fresh pain, sending waves of agony from his eyes on back. He shuffled slowly over to the table, steadying himself on the back of his chair as he searched for his mug, to wash the taste of the previous night from his mouth, when he noticed the alert light on his omnitool was blinking. He had a message.

He engaged its interface, blinking at the brightness of the screen in the darkened room and was met with a mailbox full of info pushes, people forwarding small data packets containing their contact information, some had brief messages attached. After reading the first few, Thane decided it would be best to deactivate the receptive feature and delete the messages as soon as his head stopped vexing him.

He skimmed a bit more and there, amongst the clutter of unwanted sexual advances was a push from Kolyat.

Dad,

Just thought you'd want my home extranet addy and comm info so you can contact me directly and not through Bailey. Sorry about last night, but I still had fun. We should try again soon.

-K

Thane couldn't stop the smile that crept across his features. They had made progress.