AN: Well, here it is.

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Special thanks to Spyke1985 for being an awesome beta! Your rock the most!

Okay, hope you enjoy!

Chapter Twenty Two - Facing Demons

"Morning, Mrs Tallin," Tiberius greeted softly as Sarah groaned, curling up with her blanket, not wanting to leave the warmth of her bed, although she had a smile across her face.

"Morning, Mr… Erm… Mizuiro? Shepard-Vakarian? I don't know. Ask me when I'm awake," she muttered, pulling her blankets tightly up under her chin.

He shook his head at her, his subharmonics trilling with humour. "Didn't you like being nameless back in the day at C-Sec? Something about it being 'mysterious'…"

She gave him a wicked grin as she sat up. "Don't deny it; my mystery was downright sexy."

He nodded, nuzzling her neck a little. "I'll admit, it had a certain charm. But I much prefer this. Knowing you."

"Me too," she admitted softly, before groaning a little as she stretched. "What time is it?" she suddenly asked, prompting him to check his omni-tool.

"Just after eight," he told her, prompting her to groan once more.

"Red?"

"Yeah?"

"It's too cold."

He nodded. "How do you think I feel?" he asked as he wrapped his arms around her.

She moved the blanket so that it was covering both of them, snuggling up to his warmth. "Do you think we could get away with working on datapads and just not move for the rest of the day?"

He grinned at her. "I like the way you think." She grinned back before frowning a little, losing herself in her thoughts as she often did. "Something's bothering you," he observed, causing her to stiffen momentarily. She really didn't want him to ruin things by asking about her health. Perhaps Nat was right to remain so optimistic but... Sarah found it more and more difficult with each day that passed. "No, I don't mean that..." he said, catching her off-guard by reading her so well, "well, actually, yes, that as well, but something else is bothering you."

"Sometimes I forget how well you know me," she murmured into his cowl as he kept her close, running his talons through her hair.

"So, are you going to tell me?" he asked softly.

She simply sighed. "It's just… Philip's standing up to his demons and facing his past and when I was given the chance I ran away… just like always," she told him, causing his subharmonics to trill with question. "I saw Harry… I saw him a couple of times, actually. Back when I was a student."

"You think that you should have said something to him?"

Sarah nodded a little. "I think that I was afraid of what he'd say. That he'd blame me," she admitted, the broken edge to her tone meaning that Tiberius couldn't help but hold her tighter as he heard her subharmonics trill with regret. It was clear what she wanted to do but he knew that she would need someone to tell her that it would be okay.

"Come on," he said, pulling the blanket from both of them so that she held him closer for a few moments as she adjusted to the cold morning air.

"Where are we going?" she asked, frowning a little as she wondered what had happened to their plan of staying in bed all day.

"To face your demons," he said simply.

She folded her arms, raising a browplate at him. "We're on lockdown, remember?"

He just shrugged. "It's an emergency situation," he reasoned.

She sighed. "Red…" she started, her mind running over hundreds of arguments against what he was suggesting, but he stepped close to her once more, wrapping his arms around her so that any nerves or anxiety were washed away by the overwhelming feeling of safety that he brought her.

"Blue, you need this," he said simply, and she was once again struck by just how well he could read her. She was used to picking up on what other people were thinking or feeling without them telling her, but she still wasn't used to being the recipient of such intuition. However, from Red she didn't mind. He knew her and she simply didn't mind.

"I love you, ani," she told him softly; sure that she didn't say it enough. She was still too used to trying to distance herself from people but she knew that she never wanted to create any distance between her and the turian in front of her. "Never doubt that."

"Never…"

Tia liked to think that she was good at reading people. Always had been. It had been a skill that had served her more than well in the past and she had learnt to appreciate it. She liked to think that she could read Philip better than most, although he still managed to surprise her on occasion. Now was not one of those occasions, however, as he refused to stop fidgeting, deliberately setting a slow pace as they approached the small diner where they had tracked his sister down.

"You sure you want to do this?"

He nodded, steeling himself with determination. "I have to, Tia," he told her simply.

"Okay then," she replied, taking his hand in hers. He gave a grateful squeeze as they headed into the diner before letting go, giving her a slightly apologetic look. She understood. She had seen the stares as they had walked down the street. She fully understood that this was a part of the city that rarely saw other races and, as a result, bigotry was rampant.

They made their way over to a small table in the corner, sitting opposite each other. Tia was pretty sure that her fiancée was putting all of his effort into not visibly shaking. Although his nerves seemed to turn to amazement as the waitress walked over. She was short and plump, with thin brown hair down to her shoulders. Tia reckoned that she was maybe a year or two younger than Philip and the resemblance was clearly there, marking her as his younger sister.

"Alicia?" Philip asked, his voice a little hoarse, as she approached.

She frowned a little before her expression transformed into a disbelieving stare. "Phil?! Oh my goodness!" she exclaimed as she sat down next to him, wrapping her arms around him. They were both grinning as she pulled away, staring at him as if she had never seen anything more unbelievable in her life. Tia felt very much as if she was intruding but she knew that Philip wanted her close by. They both knew that the pleasant reunion wouldn't last long.

"Hey," he eventually managed. "I missed you."

"I missed you too. Where have you been?" she asked, although Tia noted the undercurrent of anger beneath her disbelief and joy. "Dad tried to find you but he never could. Philip, I thought that… I feared the worst."

"Oh, Al… I didn't mean to make you worry."

She nodded as if she didn't quite believe him. "It's okay. You're here now," she told him, although she seemed to be clenching her jaw a little, holding back what she really thought of his disappearing act. "So, where you been?"

"I've been living on the Citadel, working at C-Sec," he told her. To her surprise, Tia couldn't tell what the small girl (Tia had difficulty thinking of her as a woman) thought about this information. Her gaze drifted to Tia and the asari tried to remain still under her scrutinising glare.

"Who's your friend?" Alicia asked her brother who tried his best not to look uncomfortable.

"Al, this is Tia. Tia, this is my sister Alicia," he introduced, barely avoiding stammering awkwardly.

Tia tried to smile warmly, extending her hand. After a few moments Alicia took it, clearly a little uncomfortable around the asari.

"Nice to meet you," Tia told her, doing her best to keep her voice warm and sincere.

Alicia nodded. "You too." Both Tia and Philip let the obvious lie go, although Philip couldn't help but notice how his sister's gaze fell on the ring on Tia's finger. She had always been the smartest of the four siblings. "So, you two work together?"

Philip shot Tia a quick look that screamed 'Help me! I'm drowning!' but she wasn't sure what she could do. Neither of them had talked much about what they would say. Philip knew his sister best but it had been six years. They couldn't really plan for any eventualities, so they had decided to just play it by ear. Something that Tia hated with a passion, but that, somehow, was simply how Philip operated.

"We're part of the same team," Tia answered.

Philip nodded, seeming less on edge, but he let his gaze drop a little in thought before continuing. "Yeah. But that's possibly the most underwhelming description of our relationship… she's not here because she's my friend, Al. She's here because she's my fiancée."

His sister seemed to take a moment to digest that information, gritting her teeth a little. "Right… well… I'm happy for you, Phil. Really. But maybe it was better that Dad never found you. You know what he's like."

Philip nodded. "I know. But, Al, Dad did find me. About three and a half years ago."

She shook her head. "No… he would have told me. Plus, if he had, then why didn't you come home?"

"Because he didn't ask. He wasn't there looking for me. Al… what do you know about Dad's been up to since I left?"

"He… God, Phil, he was furious. He was… more difficult than usual. I spent most of my time at friends' houses. But… then he got his act together, a little over a year after you left. He got a job off-world. It was good money and he's been… looking after me." Philip could see the traces of guilt in his sister's eyes. She knew exactly who their father was working for; she was just turning a blind eye, for whatever reason.

"Al, do you know what that job was?"

Her gaze dropped. "He was never specific…" The reasoning was hollow, and she knew it, so she gave up trying to say anything else.

"Al, he's been working with Cerberus. Three years ago he wasn't looking for me; he was hunting down a friend of mine. And he succeeded, Al."

She shook her head. "Look, Phil, I don't know what you want. Dad doesn't speak to me about work; he just sends me the money."

Philip gave his sister an incredulous look. "Since when do you care about money, Al? It's not worth it, and you know it. Plus, it hardly looks like he's taking good care of you from where I'm sitting."

She glared at him, folding her arms. "You lost the right to take that attitude with me when you bailed six years ago. I work here because I want to, not because I have to. You have no right to judge the things that I do or the choices I have made. I have my own problems, Phil, and it wasn't as if you were around. I had to take help where I could get it."

He wasn't sure how to respond to that. She was right. He had abandoned her, and yet he had still expected to find the young, idealistic girl who had so much more potential than this. He wondered what had happened to her dreams. Had she even finished high school? Had she given up on her dreams along the way or was she simply struggling to reach them? Would things have been better if he had stayed?

His thoughts were still being plagued by these questions when one of Alicia's friends interrupted them.

"Al, the school just called. Something about a fight. I'll hold the fort until you get back."

Alicia immediately jumped up at that, a worried look on her face. "Is Phil okay?"

Her friend nodded. "A little bruised up I think, but mostly okay."

"Wait, what?" Philip asked, thoroughly confused.

Alicia sighed, turning to her brother once more. "As I said, I have my own problems now. Dad doesn't talk to me about his work, but even if he did… I'm on my own, Philip, and I have to look out for my son. So, just leave. Please."

Philip had no response as she left.

"Maybe this was more dramatic in my head…" Tiberius sighed as he filled out another piece of paperwork that would allow them to leave the building for a day.

Sarah laughed a little as she focused on her own work. "Did you think we could just waltz out?"

"Well, I was hoping to not give you time to… what's that human phrase? 'Chicken out'?"

"That's the one," she replied before her gaze dropped a little. "But… you're right. I need to do this. Before… I just… I don't have a long list of regrets. I can live quite happily with almost every decision I have made, but not that one. I have been running from my guilt for so long and… now my time is up. I should face the music."

Red frowned a little as she spoke, noticing how she was holding back tears as she spoke. He moved over to her, feeling her guilt bubble to the surface. "Blue…"

She cut him off before he could start reassuring her. "It's what started this whole trend of running from my problems and, as I have said before, I am done running. So, it makes sense to go back to the beginning. Make things right while I…"

While I still can.

He pressed his forehead to hers, his subharmonics trilling with reassurance as he tried to convey hope through their bond, but she was pushing it away more than usual. After a few moments his own thoughts became clouded with a little confusion as something felt off.

Sarah ran a little hotter than humans usually – she had a whole rant about how it messed with some of her human enzymes or something, but he couldn't remember most of it – but she still felt cool to him. Not today, however, as he realised that she, if anything, felt warm against him.

He pulled away a little, trying to not let his subharmonics trill with worry as he looked her over. She still had her blanket wrapped around her, tight under her chin with just one hand poking out, clasped around her datapad. The changes had been so subtle over the past few weeks but, now that he was looking for them, they were almost painfully obvious. Her cheeks were tinged with a light purple, more so than usual, but the rest of her skin looked a few degrees paler. He would have said that it was just the lack of exposure to sunlight if the change hadn't just occurred in the past month or so. The dark circles beneath her eyes seemed darker, and she had lost some of the roundness to her features, replaced, instead, by the sharp angles of turian features. She didn't look fit as she had during their days at C-Sec, but neither had she the pleasing curves that civilian life had left her with. There had always been places where her plates were so close to the surface that they could almost be seen; over her arms and her ribs, but not like this. She was nothing but skin, plate and bone.

"Stop looking at me like that," she snapped, fixing him with a glare. "I'm just running a little fever. I'll be okay again in a couple of days."

"Blue, when was the last time you ate?"

She shrugged. "This morning, I guess. I… know that I haven't been eating much but… my digestion isn't great right now. Some days I can't tolerate dextro, others I struggle with levo."

"Blue…" He wasn't sure how to voice his worries. She should still have six months left, but if she kept getting worse at this rate, he doubted she would last that long.

She sighed, knowing his thoughts. "Look, it's bad right now, but it's going to stop getting worse. I'll have a few months of just being generally sickly as my body struggles to maintain itself. Eventually, roughly six months from now, something will fail that can't be fixed as my brain starts to go. This is a slow process, Red…"

"I know, Blue," he told her, pressing his forehead to hers once more as he resumed trilling reassurance at her, careful to keep his worry from his tones, knowing that it would only make her worry. "I just… you are really bad at making sure you take care of yourself. You keep pushing yourself, even on the bad days."

She nodded. "Of course I do. The other hybrids don't stop destabilising just because I am. I can't just take a sick day because I'm a little under the weather."

"But you're not doing them any favours by running yourself ragged, ani."

She sighed. "I know. It's just… difficult to keep the balance, you know?"

"I know," he told her, wishing that he knew the first thing about biology so that he could help her, "but, just know that you're not alone in this."

"I know, ani," she replied softly before kissing him gently, trying to return the way his fingers were gently stroking her cheek without extracting herself from her blanket. "I know…"

Philip was silent as they returned to the sky car, worrying Tia. It was so unlike him to not speak at all, but right now she could see that he was hurting and, for once, she was at a complete loss for how to help. She had never had to deal with family like this.

Philip only turned to face her once they had reached the empty car park, leaning against their sky car as he seemed to still be trying to figure out what to say. "I don't know what I expected," he eventually settled for.

"You seemed… let down," she prompted softly.

He sighed, shaking his head. "Al was… she was really smart. She's right, Tia, I bailed on her. No one else looked out for her and, in the end, neither did I. You've heard about what my dad's like. I have two older brothers as well, have I ever told you that?"

She shook her head. "You never mentioned them."

"Rick and Jordan. Both have been in and out of jail more times than I can count. Jordan's just an idiot but Rick? If there was ever a reason I wanted to get into law enforcement, it was to keep bastards like him off the streets. A few weeks after he ended up in jail for the first time, Mom left, never to be heard from again. I think she just gave up on the lot of us. Al was too young to even remember her. All she ever had was a father who could never really be classed as 'there', two brothers who were only home between sentences, and me. And then I left."

"Philip, you did what you had to. You were sixteen, yourself. You shouldn't have had to look after her."

"'Shouldn't have' has so little meaning in places like this, Tia. I think you know just as well as I that kids are often forced to shoulder responsibility that they shouldn't have to."

"Yeah…" She had nothing else to say to that.

He sighed once more, shaking his head. "It's all so fucked up. I mean, she's got a kid? And he's in school? I just… she was the smart one. She wasn't one of those girls, you know?"

"Honey, you don't know what happened. You can't sit there and make guesses, just like you can't let your guilt over leaving eat you up."

He nodded. "I just… she was polite, but I could see it. How angry she was with me. This is all so fucked up. I decided long ago that I wanted nothing more to do with my fucked up family but… I guess they decided that they want nothing more to do with me either, huh?"

Tia gave him a sympathetic look as she moved towards him, wrapping her arms around him. He was almost a head taller than her so, when he wrapped his own arms around her in return, he very much enveloped her. She wanted to comfort him, but also to show him that he had family. He had her, and Smiles and Rookie. The four of them had built up this strange, make-shift family over the past six years and he needed to be reminded of that. That there were people who cared about him.

"Get in the car," she told him as she sat in the side with the controls.

He frowned. "Where are we going?"

She gave him a cheeky smile. "Just get in."