Thank you all for your feedback, and my sincere apologies for not replying to comments in a more timely fashion. RL has been a bit tumultuous.

Please also be advised that the warnings for this story have been updated, and are found in the prologue.

Aethyta

Aethyta swam gradually back up towards full consciousness, taking careful stock of herself as she went.

She was still more than half drunk. That was probably a check in the plus column, all things considered. Unfortunately, she was more than a little bit hung-over too, which was a definite negative, and definitely only going to get more negative as time went by.

All arms and legs and other extremities seemed to be attached, and she was in a bed of some sort, both of which were definitely plusses, especially when you considered some of the other places you could end up after a night on the town. Beneath the blanket, however, she seemed to be butt naked, and that was one that could really go either way. It rather depended on who the shoulder her head was half-pillowed against belonged to, whose legs one of hers had worked itself over and between and who owned the soft, full but regrettably clothed breast beneath her resting hand.

Her hand twitched. Her nostrils flared.

A familiar softness. A familiar scent.

Oh.

Well, that one could go either way too.

For now, though, it wasn't worth worrying about. Better to stay here, half-drunk, half-asleep, and pretend that everything was just as it used to be. That she was safe, and content, and loved. Far better.

She sighed and shifted closer, closing what little space remained between them to nuzzle at the delicate arch of her bondmate's neck. A questioning noise met the movement, a cheek was pressed to the top of her head and fingers, in the lightest, gentlest of touches, brushed down her cheek, along the line of her jaw. She sighed again, relaxed a bit further still, and let her mind drift down towards nothingness.

When she woke again, some unknown time later, she was somewhat less drunk, considerably more hung-over and, to cap it all off, in dire need of a piss. She tried to push the sensations away, to hold tight to blissful, sleepy ignorance, and cursed softly when her efforts failed. Extricating herself as carefully as she could manage, she half-rolled, half-stumbled out of the bed, found her pants and, rebounding off the occasional wall and doorframe with the not-so occasional curse, and made use of the ship's limited facilities. Damned if she was heading all the way down to the latrines. She was a thousand years old, thank you very much. She could damn well have her comforts if she wanted them, and 'appearances' could go take a flying leap.

Necessary business attended to, she cleaned her hands with a quick-dry alcohol scrub, and, slightly more steadily and certainly more quietly, began the return trip, shivering a little from the cold. She hadn't gotten very far, however, when a little tableau in the galley caught her eye: two bottles, an MRE, a small green sachet and three orange pills. She examined them each in turn through bleary eyes, mouth suddenly dry with thirst. The first bottle was glass, the amber liquid inside, when she pulled the stopper for a cautious sniff and quick swing, a rather low-end ice brandy. Not quite shuttle fuel, but close. The second, larger and more prominently placed plastic bottle turned out to be just plain water, the sachet beside it an electrolyte mix and the pills an analgesic, probably from some field battle kit or another. She shrugged, popped the pills, added the sachet to the water and took a long pull from it before setting it aside. The MRE was the one she found least objectionable after the goddess only knew how many days of living on the damn things - a creamy tasnitsi fish stew. A number eight.

It was a thoughtful gesture, even if her stomach threatened to rebel at the very idea of food. The whole evening had been thoughtful, come to think of it, much more than she'd expected Benezia to be capable of these days. Hell, she'd seemed to know exactly what Aethyta would need before she needed it and had it to hand, from the moment she'd first appeared in the dining hall, looking for her, to the way she'd drawn her aside, to the drink she'd pressed into her hand just before she delivered the letter, to-

Aethyta felt her heart lurch again, hard in her chest, and tears, sudden and hot, blurred her vision. She gripped the edge of the counter with both hands, bowed her head and squeezed her eyes shut, willing them away.

You'd have been so proud of her, ma Mel had written.

Fuck pride. Fuck it right in its bony arse. She'd rather have a living daughter. Hadn't she told them all that? If they ever got to feeling an urge for a glorious death in battle, she'd said, they had to come and see her first. She'd set them straight or die trying herself. Glory was only fun if you were still around to enjoy its perks.

"Fuck."

Suddenly unable to stand still a moment longer, she pushed herself back from the counter, turned away, turned back, repeated the motion twice more, snatched up the brandy bottle, yanked the top off in a single, practiced motion, threw it aside and skulled half of the thing in one go.

It was a hell of a thing to see. She tore through them like a thresher maw in a siarist commune.

"Fuck!"

Her voice was hoarse from the cold burn of the brandy, her eyes welling over with tears that could only possibly be from the same. She took a moment to get her breath back, tipped back the bottle once more and finished the rest in another long draught. When she was done, she stood, swaying, staring down at the empty bottle through stinging eyes.

None of us would have gotten out if she hadn't stayed back to hold them off. You'd have been so proud of her. Goddess knows I was.

"Fuck!" it was a shout this time, and she punctuated it by flinging the bottle against the galley's stainless steel wall.

It shattered in a deeply satisfying fashion, showering her and the galley with stinging shards of frozen light. She stared down at them, glittering in the sink and on the counter, and was suddenly, almost absurdly reminded of the time they'd gone back to Kahje, just after Drakan, Zara's father, had died.

They'd picked up the boat she'd left stored in the great floating port of Bimett, all those years before, and she'd taken Mel and Zara out onto the great Encompassing for a few months. Ostensibly, it was to teach them to sail, but in reality it was more so that the three of them could sit and talk and grieve and just be together without other distractions. Most nights they'd slept out on the deck beneath the open, glittering sky, and she'd taught them the names of the stars and the constellations, just as Gazes With Wonder at the Fire-lit Void, Mel's other parent, had once taught her. You didn't get stars anywhere else like you did on Kahje. It was something about the lack of light pollution, and the reflection from the endless, bottomless water.

Aethyta might have been a spacer brat by birth and inclination, and Thessia may have been the birthplace of her people, but Kahje would always be the home of her soul, tattered and weary as it was. It was the place where, for the first time after the death of her parents, she'd found something approaching peace, a peace she hadn't even known she'd needed. She'd taught her girls to love the ocean world too, with time. Zara, still a child, then, had cried to leave it. Later, she'd taken her own two daughters out on similar voyages when her bondmates - their fathers - had died.

Would those two go out there now together, in her memory? Should Aethyta take them out herself? Were they both even still alive? Hells, was there even anything still left of the hanar homeworld to visit? They weren't exactly what you'd call a militant species; taking out their automated defences would be a maiden's game.

The ache in her chest only grew at the thought of ash on the water, explosions in the deep.

"Aethyta? Are you alright?"

Her head whipped around, seeking out the intruder, and quickly found her, rubbing the sleep from her eye: Liara. Benezia's kid. Her own youngest. The one who'd been kept from her. The one she'd mourned for twice already, drinking to the relationship they'd never had, never would have. Four daughters, Aethyta'd had, when the war started. Now she only had three, and one of those wasn't really hers at all.

"Fine, kid," she said wearily. "Go back to bed."

The kid took a hesitant step closer.

"Are you sure-?"

"I said I'm fine. Bed. Now. Go."

"Um. 'Dad', I just wanted to say-"

Something about the awkward way in which the kid said the unaccustomed word made Aethyta's blood run hot. She'd never been Liara's father. But she had wanted to be. She'd realised too late, maybe, how badly, but she'd wanted to be. She'd wanted to share her life and her loves one last time before she was too old, too tired or too dead.

"Get. Lost," she growled, turning in full. "And If I have to repeat myself one more time, you're really gonna regret it."

Still, though, Liara lingered, and Aethyta charged a fist, a show of making good on her threat, when a new voice chimed in from behind her.

"Liara, go," Benezia said quietly. "I will handle this."

The kid cast one last lingering, worried look between the pair of them, nodded her acquiescence and then fled, looking relieved. When Aethyta was certain that she was well out of earshot, she turned back to face Benezia, fist still raised and charged.

"And you can fuck right off too! You're good at that. I should know!"

Benezia ignored the implied threat and the accusation, and instead took a careful step closer, frowning as she surveyed the shards of glass littering the small space. In the flickering light of Aethyta's biotics, she looked gaunt and drawn and hollow, shadows dancing across her face to pool in the well of her eyes and the hollows of cheeks. The line of her collarbone stood out in stark relief against her skin where it was visible there, beneath the loose, long shirt that covered her to mid-thigh.

"The whole bottle, Aethyta? Really?"

Aethyta followed her gaze down to the floor and back up again, meeting her eyes. What she saw there, the hint of disapproval behind the concern, only fuelled her rising anger.

"Yeah, 'the whole fucking bottle'. So what? You left it there!"

"I did not-"

"And even if you didn't, you are in no position to judge me, Benezia T'Soni," she declared, letting her charged fist dissipate to point an accusing finger at her former lover instead. "No fucking position at all! Hiding away in your cabin and in your bed and in your own damn head while the rest of us try to get on with things! You're not the only one who's been hurt by this fucking war!"

There was a pause that went on for rather too long, the only sounds Aethyta's short, quick breaths and the hot rush of her own blood in her veins.

"No. I rather suppose that I am not. I had not meant-" Benezia stopped abruptly and sighed, closing her eyes and bowing her head. "Very well. I will trouble you no longer."

Goddess, always fucking retreating! But that was Benezia all over. She'd deflect and deflect and deflect, never willing to have an honest, stand-up row, never wanting to give Aethyta the satisfaction of seeing her lose her own temper.

Her hands balled themselves back into fists.

"Oh, and that's how you 'handle things', is it?" she sneered. "By walking away?"

She took a step towards her former bondmate and right onto a shard of glass; the sharp stab of pain through her bare foot only drove her anger to new heights, pushing it dangerously close to rage. She felt her biotics flare all along her body, and could see the red creeping in at the edges of her vision.

"But I guess it's worked out pretty well for you so far! When things get rough, you just up sticks and fuck off and screw the rest of us right over, don't you? Don't you?! Well, fuck you too!"

When Benezia didn't respond, didn't even lift her head, Aethyta closed the final distance between them with two quick steps, seizing her upper arm with one hand and her chin with the other, forcing her head up so that their eyes met. Benezia did not resist, even when Aethyta forced her back up against the wall beside the cabin's door.

"Well, come on then! You always had the glib tongue outta the two of us. What have you gotta say for yourself, hiding away in here? What makes you so special? So damn precious? I want to hear it! Come on!"

When this too, failed to elicit a response, Aethyta shook her roughly, increasing the pressure of her grip from hard to bruising.

"Come on, Benezia! You're not fucking running from me this time!" She shook her again. "Say something, damnit!"

Still nothing. Aethyta raised the hand holding her chin and pulled it back to deliver, not a biotically charged blow, but an open-handed slap, when she remembered herself and froze.

Family was important, her father had said. Sacrosanct.

He'd killed her mother though, even as she'd killed him. For all his words and hers, family hadn't really mattered squat to them in the end. They'd gone off to that miserable dump of a station so they could kill each other, leaving her alone with nothing but their debts, a cheap shotgun and a few pieces of worthless sentimental crap, all because family – because she wasn't anywhere near as important to them as their fucking honour had been.

She wasn't her father, though. Or her mother. And only animals and cowards attacked those who couldn't fight back. Benezia couldn't, not now. Still as she'd gone, Aethyta could feel the way her ex was trembling beneath her hands, see the whites of her eyes and the fine sheen of perspiration along her brow.

And she was damned if she'd be her mother.

"Shit."

She let her upraised hand fall.

"Shit."

And then, because it seemed like a good idea, she brought it back up again to caress one pale cheek with the backs of her fingers.

"Hey," she said, quietly, awkwardly, abruptly aware of the racing of her heart and the pounding of her head, the slight slur and uneven rhythm her speech had acquired. "Hey babe. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I know it's hard. I know. I shouldn't, shouldn't have- Aw, hell."

And then, because she'd never had Benezia's way with words, and because it seemed like a good idea too, she leaned forward and kissed her.

It wasn't, in the long, storied history of their kisses, a particularly good one. It wasn't even close. A sudden tenseness of body and sharp inhalation of breath was the only indication that Benezia had even realised what was happening. But when she pulled back, Benezia's eyes were wide and crystal blue and focused on her own.

"Aethyta, no," she said, so softly that she well might not have spoken.

"Yeah," Aethyta countered, just as quietly, slipping her hand behind Nezzie's neck to pull her in once again.

This time, when their lips met, the outcome was rather more satisfactory. After the initial, gentle, tentative brush, Benezia's lips parted beneath hers, letting her tongue slip past, and, for the first time in more than a century Aethyta could taste her. She was Benezia and salt and Kahje, peace and home.

And then Benezia's hands found her shoulders, and she found herself being gently pushed away.

"No. It would... not be wise."

"Fuck 'wise'," was her only reply as she leaned forward again.

The fire of her anger had quickened, changed, turned inwards and, goddess, but she wanted. She'd tried to tell herself it wasn't true, but her damned treacherous heart had wanted Benezia from the moment she'd first laid eyes upon her again, sleeping and pale beneath the glass. The rest of her had wanted too.

But before she could capture her lips once more, Benezia's hand snaked up between them to press two restraining fingers to Aethyta's own, holding her back.

"'thy, no," Nezzie said, looking frightened, sounding lost. "I... do not think I could, even if-"

Even if she'd wanted to. Right.

Suddenly, staring into those sad, confused, wide blue eyes, it was all too much. The war. The camp. Their ruined homeworld. Their shattered people. Her fucked-up life. The daughter she'd never known. The fragile shell of the asari she loved, who still didn't want her anymore. Her poor, sweet, darling, baby girl, dead, dead, dead.

Goddess! Aethyta could still remember the first time she'd held Zara in her arms, put her to her breast and felt her latch and begin to suck. She'd stroked the impossibly soft and delicate skin of her head and neck, a rich blue many shades removed from Aethyta's own lavender, and argued half-heartedly with Drakan about her name, content in their company and her own satisfying exhaustion. Drakan had won, of course, in the end. Aethyta'd wanted her second daughter to have something lasting of her father's, and a name was a simple enough gift to give.

Aethyta pressed forward once more, but this time it was not for a kiss but to bury her face in the crook of Benezia's neck and wrap her arms around her too-slender waist, clinging on for dear life.

It took what seemed like an eternity for her to cry herself out. Benezia held her wordlessly throughout, resting her head against the top of her own and rubbing her back in light circles until the sobs turned teary shudders and the shudders to dry-eyed shaking. Between that and the brandy, it was all she could do to keep her feet under her as Benezia led her back to the bed, and she could barely keep her eyes open once she'd been helped into it, on her side, and had the pillows arranged beneath her head and body, the covers pulled up loosely to cover her.

But there was a subtle wrongness to it that slowly filtered through the growing, leaden haze of alcohol and emotional exhaustion. She forced her eyes back open in time to see Benezia turning away, as if to go, and felt a pang of distress. She clumsily reached a hand out for her, succeeding in catching her arm on the second attempt. Benezia turned back and looked down at her, a clear question in her eyes.

"Stay?" she asked plaintively, her hand finding and taking Benezia's own. "Please?"

It seemed like hours before Benezia responded, and then it was to sigh and close her eyes and nod her head ever so slowly.

"Yes."