Oh, hello. Been awhile since I've updated this story, I know. I was really struggling with this chapter, but inspiration struck last night, so here you go. I'd like to take this opportunity to thank all my commentors: MyNameIsAverage , Razorsmile, Gone Rampant, Iknowtoomuch, Paradox Unintentional, Chicho, and Incoqnito. Remember! Every time you comment, you get a free invisible internet doughnut. With sprinkles. Enjoy.

The drell was an Afterlife regular. Aria T'Loak didn't spend all her hours lounging up in her tower overlooking the place. She was a busy woman, and her appearances there were actually quite rare. So Sensat was an Afterlife regular.

Archangel had given him the night off, the rest of the team running a quick and easy hit that must have been successful, because Erash and Vortash were both at the club. He'd spotted them when he slipped past the bouncer, smiled at a waitress, and made his way to the bar. The elder batarian was chatting up a human female while Vortash was already three sheets to the wind. Smiling crookedly to himself, Sensat turned on a heel and headed their way.

"Vortash, my friend," he called out cheerfully, slapping the man on the back. "Successful night?"

Vortash looked over, each of his four eyes blinking a few times, completely out of synch. The fact that he greeted the sick fuck drell with a broad grin was further evidence he was shitfaced. "Sessat! Fuck yes! We-…" He caught himself, glancing about then leaned in closer to the drell, voice dropping. "We killed Velig."

"No shit," Sensat said with a grin. "Sorry I missed it."

"Yeeeah, Garrus is here somewhere. I dunno. Not hanging out with 'im in here. Or th' humans. She doesn't count." He motioned to the dark woman that Erash currently had his arm around.

Erash rolled his four eyes at his brother, "He's still on his painkillers. Turned him into a lightweight."

"At least he's a happy drunk," Sensat murmured with a grin.

"Fuck yes," Vortash nodded his head vigorously. He crooked a finger at Sensat, motioning him closer, "Hey. Hey, you 'member that time I told you I screwed an asari?"

"Yes?"

"I lied."

"No!" Sensat gasped, feigning shock.

"Yeah, but you."

"You want to screw me?"

"Nooo. Shut up, no." Vortash shook his head, three eyes closing, one remaining fixed on the drell. Erash snickered into his lady's shoulder. "No. You have had asari."

"Hundreds."

"You hafta set me up, man. You have to. You have to."

Sensat leaned on his elbows on the table, grinning broadly at the plastered bataraian. "Do I now?"

"You have to."

"I have to.'

"Listen." Vortash adopted a serious expression, and then seemed to forget what he was going to say. "Listen," he repeated.

"Sensat!" Melanis had found them, coming up behind the drell with a grin.

Sensat glanced over and chuckled, hooking an arm around the turian and giving his fringe a playful tug before releasing him. "I heard what went down. Good work."

"Yeah! Ripper caught it on video, you're going to have to watch it. Hey." Melanis rested his hands on the table, "Did you see that Aria was here?"

"What?" Sensat was suddenly tense, alert, looking to the platform overlooking the club.

"I've lived on Omega all my life and I've only seen her, like, six times." Melanis held up all his fingers. "I mean, I still didn't see her, technically, but everyone is saying that she was just here."

"The bouncer said she wasn't," Sensat murmured, his brows pulling together. "She's gone now, though, right?"

Vortash snorted into his drink, "What, you slept with 'er, too?"

"Yes, actually," Sensat flashed a smile, then rested a hand on Vortash's back, "I've got a friend. I'll send her your way, Vortash. Turn on the charm, big daddy."

The day that Vortash discovered he was a father was a Thursday. It was an atypical Thursday in that he and his big brother Erash decided to slip into batarian space and visit their ailing mother on Lorek.

The batarian hegemony was not too keen on its citizens leaving batarian controlled space, but emigration was rampant, and it was never all that hard to get in or out of the outlying colonies. Especially not for a pair of Blue Sun mercenaries.

Their mother had been being especially moody and more bitchy than usual. "Three years! My only two boys, the last people I have left in this galaxy wait three fucking years to visit their sick mother?" So the pair of them quickly departed the rest home to cause trouble downtown. Vortash's omni-tool had been going crazy since they'd landed with repeated calls and messages from an old flame, a woman named Gurkta.

Vortash had tried to ignore the calls. Last thing he needed was another woman harping on him. He and Erash had found a bar, hit on a few women, and roughed up a few patrons before Vortash was drunk enough to forget he was avoiding Gurkta. It was apparent to his inebriated self that the admittedly sexy woman wanted not to bitch at him, but rather missed his unique brand of batarian loving, and he talked Erash into driving them over to her place. Erash agreed, and followed him into her apartment, needing to take a piss.

This had been a mistake. Gurkta greeted the brothers with a fury the like of which neither of them had ever seen. Batarian women are generally encouraged to be submissive and well behaved, but Gurkta flung a chair at Vortash as soon as he stepped inside.

"Asshole!" she screeched. "I have been trying to get in touch with you for three goddamn years! NOW you show up?"

Vortash blinked his four eyes, ducking the chair and sobering up quickly under the assault. "What the hell…? I've been busy!"

"Busy?" Gurkta stared at him in disbelief, then grabbed a cooking pot from the counter and lobbed that at him. "Too busy to answer a fucking message?"

"Whuh…" Vortash dodged the pot, its contents splattering against the wall, "it's not always easy to get a signal out in space, Gurkta, y'know…"

Erash had stepped out of the way of the battle, looking about for the restroom. Protective as he was of his brother, he was not getting in the middle of this one. But he was the first to see Kikka.

She was small and skinny, all long thin legs and arms with a round little belly, hiding in the corner behind a frayed divan. She wore only a pair of leggings that she'd long outgrown, the cuffs ending halfway up her calves. She had four big eyes the color of oil droplets; skin a soft warm yellow with a green stripe running up each temple and curling back over her perfectly round little head. Erash stopped in his tracks.

Vortash had green stripes running up his temples, too.

Shit. "Vortash?" said Erash.

The other batarian had now gotten over his shock of being assaulted by the woman and was enthusiastically screaming back at her. "What business is it of yours where I go or what I do? You're not my damn wife!"

"Vortash."

"Oh, I pity the woman thick enough to marry you! I constantly question what lapse of judgment ever led me to even sleep with you!"

"Vortash."

"What?"Vortash spun on Erash and blinked at the little girl who was cautiously approaching his outstretched hand.

Gurkta crossed her arms with a smug smirk. "That." she said, motioning to the child, "is yours."

"What?" Vortash turned back to the woman, all four eyes wide.

"She is yours." Gurkta cocked her right eyebrows. "And I can't afford to keep her anymore."

"Does she have a name?" Erash asked, scooping the girl up once she was close enough. Batarian children mature quickly, and by age three Kikka was the equivalent of a human six year old. The girl rubbed at the tattoo on the man's chin, her brows pulling together in confusion when it didn't wipe off.

Gurkta shot Erash a dark look, "Of course she does. Kikka. I can't get any work, Vortash," she rounded back on him. "You know what kind of shit I've had to put up with? The temple is done taking care of me. I was lucky to get three years out of them and I am about to get kicked out of this apartment." She crossed her arms, jaw flexing in irritation.

Vortash narrowed his eyes at her, then shook his head. "You're asking me to take her with me?" he sputtered. "I'm a fucking mercenary!"

The woman shook her head, "I can't get any work, Vortash. Did you hear me?" Gurkta was thuk'tek. Shamed. No one would hire a woman with a child out of wedlock. Her social status was at the very bottom now, even with widows, cripples, and the insane. The thuk'tek were only one step above slaves. There were charitable organizations for the thuk'tek, of course, such as the temple she frequented. But the batarian government had recently instated limits on "handouts" to thuk'tek to discourage their taking advantage of the system.

"Why didn't you just…" he motioned at the air, frowning as he looked back at the little girl in Erash's arms. "Take care of it at some clinic?" Some underground, highly illegal, very expensive clinic.

Gurkta rolled her eyes at him, "First, you have no idea what these things cost. And second, you could have paid for it if you'd answer your fucking messages! And third, that isn't helping the situation we are in right now!"

"We?" Vortash scoffed.

"Look," Gurkta rubbed her temples. "I've already got it all set up with a wealthy family on Khar'shan. They're willing to take her. She's old enough to work." Gurkta paused, mouth twisting up as she watched Kikka in Erash's arms.

Erash had Kikka by the wrists now, swinging her back and forth through the air and making her giggle. He scowled at Gurkta, "You're selling her into slavery?"

"She'll be a house girl. For a very wealthy and respected family. Better than working in a mine somewhere." She sighed, sitting on her ratty old couch. "It'll give me enough money to get out of here and start over."

Vortash had gone silent, his arms crossed, his mouth twisted in a deep scowl, four eyes on the swinging girl. "This is about money, isn't it? You want money."

Her eyes rolled, "Yes, Vortash, getting pregnant and raising a kid all on my own was part of my grand master scheme to get money out of you. Go to hell."

"What if we gave you both enough money to get out of here?" Erash asked.

"I am not giving her a fucking dime."

"What if I gave you both enough money to get out of here?"

Gurkta shook her head, "I am not going to live in some human infested non-batarian colony. I am not raising my child in a non-batarian colony."

Erash twirled Kikka and snagged her by the ankles, hanging her upside down and making her squeal with laughter. "We could keep her."

"Are you insane?" Vortash began to pace back and forth now. "She's not a goddamned puppy, Erash, she is a person." And mercenary life was no place for a little girl.

"The family that wants to take her is a good one." Gurkta's voice had lowered, shifting from angry to sad. "It's the best option. She'll have a roof over her head… Hell, she'll live in a damn mansion. Be fed, have clean clothes." She chuckled humorlessly, rubbing her face with a hand, "She'll have a better life as a slave than I could give her as a free batarian."

On Erash's insistence the brothers stayed for hours, playing with and getting to know the sweet little girl with an active imagination. Vortash hung back, watching from a distance as Kikka deemed Erash a king, a pirate, a soldier, and the batarian equivalent of a pony before the night was over and she finally succumbed to sleep.

"Tell me I'm doing the right thing?" Gurkta had whispered in a shaky voice when the men finally prepared to go.

Vortash had nodded to her, his face a mask, "You're doing the right thing."

Six years later, the brothers were aboard a Blue Suns vessel that had stumbled across a luxury ship on a pleasure cruise along the edge of the Terminus Systems. The captain, who was not above a little piracy, had decided to take advantage of their good fortune. The ship was taken, the passengers killed and the bodies looted. Vortash and Erash were doubling back over a floor that their fellow mercenaries had already cleared out to see if anything of value was missed.

It was the floor with the slave quarters.

Later, Vortash would be certain that he already knew he would find her there, in that room with all the other dead slaves. Kikka had grown so much, tall and pretty, even wrapped up in the dingy gray garments of a servant. She was dead, of course, shot several times through the chest. One of the other mercenaries had been here, under orders to leave no survivors. Later he told himself he could be happy she wasn't kept alive for amusement.

In a rage, Vortash had attacked the two mercs who'd cleared the room with gunfire, while Erash was dumbstruck and numb. The other Blue Suns had eventually pulled him off the bloodied men, locked him and Erash in a room where they were both bound and beaten until they got back to Omega.

Tarak, the leader of the Blue Suns on Omega, had asked if the recent events were going to be a problem. He didn't need any more problems, not with this Archangel character running around. Vortash had assured Tarak that no, it wouldn't be a problem at all. That he was ready to go back to work.

He and Erash left the meeting to find the renegade vigilante and join up with him themselves.

There had been too many innocents.