The nurse is an OC, Chakwas' niece and can be found in my other fics 'Belle and Jack' and 'Jack and Belle'. She was put here because I promised :)

Chapter 5 – Visits

Much to Lakshmi's annoyance the asari next to her did not react the way that she had anticipated but rather burst out laughing.

"A spectre," Aria said after she stopped chuckling, "a spectre little girl? Where did you get such a ridiculous idea? Humans can't be spectres!"

Lakshmi pouted and irritably turned away from Aria. The asari would never take her serious. Didn't matter if Lakshmi actually managed to become a spectre, to the pirate queen she would always be Lakshmi, the helpless Omega orphan. The girl felt herself grow angry.

"Now, hey," Aria said, her voice cheerful, "don't sulk. It is great to have goals little one, but I would suggest that…"

Lakshmi stood up.

"Don't call me that," she yelled, "I am not little. I am not helpless. If I want to be a spectre I can be a spectre! And you cannot stop me!" With that the girl spun around and ran out of the room.

Aria didn't move a muscle; she had simply sat still as her protégé yelled at her. Her legs crossed, one arm casually lain on the back of the couch. Lakshmi's sudden tantrum had surprised her but Aria, as was usual, did not show surprise.

"What happened?" One of Lakshmi's mothers had entered the room.

Aria gestured dismissively.

"Who knows?" She said, "Who knows why humans do anything." She threw a look at Lakshmi's very human mother.

"She talks about you all the time you know." The human sat down on the sofa opposite of the asari, looking brave and uncertain in the same time. Neither of Lakshmi's mothers particularly liked Aria even though they had been happy to raise the girl for her. The asari was openly scared of Aria, the human tried to be braver. Aria knew that they wished that they could simply cut the criminal out of their lives but because of Lakshmi they were stuck with her. Aria didn't know if she was ready to give up seeing Lakshmi all together, if she even could stand it. She enjoyed seeing the girl and it was nice to be needed.

"We wish that she would grow up. Stop talking about you like a knight in shining armor. Have normal interests like her sisters, rather than crime, criminals and Omega."

"I never encouraged her." Aria said, feeling irritated. It was not her job to raise Lakshmi; that was why she had sent her away.

The woman in front of her swallowed, gathering courage.

"It doesn't matter. Every time you come and visit you encourage her."

"I will leave then." Aria stood up. If Lakshmi wouldn't talk with her there was no reason to stay. "Tell Lakshmi whatever you want."

Upstairs in her room, Lakshmi was sitting by the window looking at the people outside. There weren't that many humans on Illium and apart from her mother and one or two classmates the girl never met other humans. She didn't even feel human. She wanted to be asari, like her sisters… like Aria.

She heard the front door open and saw to her distress Aria exit and start walking away. Before she could think the girl stood up and ran downstairs and out the door.

"Aria," she called out.

"What?" Aria called back, sounding annoyed, "I though you didn't want to talk with me."

"No, I…" Lakshmi didn't know what to say. She had wanted Aria to be proud of her, to talk with her, maybe teach her things. Instead Aria had treated her the same as she had always done, but Lakshmi wasn't the same, she wasn't a little girl anymore. She had feelings which did not belong to a little girl and she experienced dreams that she would never tell anyone about. More than anything she would never tell anyone that Aria sometimes frequented those dreams.

Eventually Lakshmi spoke.

"I can't help that I am human."

With that she turned around and went back into the house, leaving a very puzzled Aria behind. She shook her head, humans are so strange sometimes. She contemplated going after Lakshmi and asking her what was wrong but decided against it, remembering her own adolescence several hundred years earlier, she really had been a hormonal, dramatic maiden. Aria supposed that Lakshmi was going through something similar.

She kept walking.

…

The same afternoon as Tevos had called Aria; the queen of Omega called a meeting with some of her allies throughout the Terminus Systems. She had known about the attack on the colony, and she had briefly thought of stopping it before it happened, but most of her hadn't cared. And she did have other things on her mind, the plague that was eating through Omega was still killing lots of people every day and there had been reports of collectors. The asari had more than enough on her plate.

After a very successful meeting, getting the criminals to partly give back their loot to the survivals on the colony, Aria was heading back to Afterlife. She was greeted by people left and right, everyone wanting to get a glimpse of her. Aria carried herself like a queen, enjoying the attention and reveling in how she had managed to rise to power from just being a mere dancer.

Speaking of dancer. There was a new one, pretty young thing. Just Aria's type too. Aria couldn't help but look at her a bit longer as she was walking through her nightclub and up to her sofa. She reminded herself to invite the dancer to dance by her side later. Only Aria's favorite dancers got to dance up on her platform.

To Aria's surprise her couch wasn't empty when she arrived but rather occupied by four people, one of them was Commander Shepard, sporting a happy and satisfied grin. Next to her sat that Salarian Doctor, who in turn sat next to a young human woman who looked very insecure and then on Shepard's other side sat a Turian, whom Aria assumed must be Archangel.

As annoyed as the pirate queen was to find her sofa so incredibly occupied, she couldn't help but chuckle at Shepard's grin.

"Sorry," the commander said, not sounding sorry at all, "We have been waiting for quite a while; we got tired so we sat down."

Aria raised one eyebrow and gestured for her unwanted guests to move so that she could sit down.

"Why are you here?" She asked sounding bored, "and more importantly, who are these people?" She motioned towards Garrus and the human stranger.

"This is the infamous Archangel," Shepard motioned towards Garrus, "and this is Belle Chakwas, she is the nurse on board my ship. I took her with me to assist with the plague."

"Hmf," Aria replied, "why are you here?"

Shepard didn't answer but rather handed Aria a datapad. Aria reached over and took it, quickly reading the information. Apparently the Blood Pack, the Blue suns and Eclipse had teamed up, hoping to overthrow her after defeating Archangel. What the hell?

Aria quickly flicked the datapad at her batarian security advisor.

"Why the fuck did I not know about this?"

The batarian mumbled something while leaning down to pick up the datapad that was lying on the floor.

Aria rolled her eyes at him and turned back towards Shepard.

"Thank you, Shepard. And I understand that the plague has been taken care of?" That last question was directed to Mordin.

"Taken care of. Yes. Caused by Vorcha."

Aria nodded and was about to ask something else when a female voice interrupted her. It was the nurse.

"Sorry, Miss T'loak, if I may," the girl said, "there are still a lot of people dying, if there was any way to improve hygiene for the poorest and make medicine available, it would…"

"You may not," Aria cut her shortly and turned to Shepard once more, "are we done here then? I have some… business to attend to."

Shepard nodded and stood up.

"Come on," she said to the rest and gave the nurse a rather affectionate smile, "don't worry too much. You helped."

As Aria watched the girl returned the smile but did not look convinced. Apparently she really cared about the people of Omega. Then the people left and Aria was alone once more. The asari searched her mind wondering what her next step should be against the plans to overthrow her.