Falling Away
Chapter 4
By Voodoo Queen
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Author's Note: Thank you very much to all who took the time to read the last chapter. A very special thank you to my reviewers lauren wynters and TheShepard2170. Your feedback was much appreciated as was your compliment!
Disclaimer: I don't own anything other than my own original characters and my measly, little plot. All the good stuff belongs to their respective copyright holders.
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"I don't understand," Kolyat had quit eating some time ago and now busied himself with pushing his food around on his plate with his utensil. His stomach pitched and rolled and what little he had managed to eat threatened to make a violent reappearance. He refused to look at his father as if not doing so could somehow negate the reality of what the older drell was telling him. He shook his head, too stubborn to simply accept his father's news. "What does that even mean?"
Kolyat believed things had been going well up until this point. Thane, it seemed, had been more or less true to his word in that he had simply wanted to pleasure of his son's company. These meetings weren't much but they were a start and they meant the world to his father if the grateful gleam in his eyes was anything to go by. He had inquired about how well Kolyat was adapting to his service obligation in C-Sec and wished to know how he was faring on the Citadel. They had spoken of Bailey, the small apartment C-Sec had granted him, and his daily duties. Kolyat, in reciprocation, had listened intently as his father had relayed his most recent excursion as a member of the Normandy crew. Inevitably, they had ran out of small talk and had come to the conversation Thane had intended on having with him…the conversation Kolyat had dreaded.
Thane, composed as ever, took a sip of his tea before speaking. "My…condition is progressing more rapidly than the doctors had anticipated. They have reevaluated my prognosis. If my decline continues at its current rate, I'll have about six months until…"
"Six months?!" Kolyat looked up from his plate to glare at this father. His eyes were like two deep, dark pools of ink. "What happened to a year?!"
"I admit the news came as a surprise." Thane looked thoughtfully down into his tea cup. "This changes nothing."
"How can you say that?" Kolyat slammed a fist down onto the table causing their plates to rattle. "It changes everything! How can you sit there looking so calm?"
Thane smiled sadly, "I made my peace with death long ago. If it be Kalahira's will-"
"Bullshit!" Kolyat blurted the human explicative he'd heard so often at C-Sec and stood angrily. "Kalahira's will? That's your excuse for just sitting there waiting to die? Because the goddess wants you to?"
"Kolyat," Thane tried to soothe, "My son, I need you to understand-"
"Oh," Kolyat nodded. "I understand plenty, father. I understand that there are things you could be doing, treatments you could be receiving to help you but you're refusing to even entertain the suggestion."
"We've already had this discussion, son." Thane sighed, "There are people out there, good people, who are much more deserving of help than I."
"Those people aren't my father!" Kolyat was furious now. His fists clenched so hard at his sides that his knuckles popped. "The least you could do is spend what time you have left here with me but you won't even do that! You spend more time on the Normandy with Shepard and his crew than you ever did with me! It's killing you!"
"What I do," Thane swallowed. The thickness of emotion in his voice nearly choking him. "I do for you, Kolyat."
"Yeah," Kolyat snorted. He wasn't sure if he was more hurt or pissed off at his father. It really didn't matter. The only thing on his mind at the moment was making his father feel as low as he did at that particular moment. He didn't even care that they had begun to draw stares from the other patrons inside Apollo's Café. "Everything is for me, right dad?"
At that moment, it seemed that everything that had been festering inside of him wormed its way to the surface. Kolyat growled, "What about leaving me and mom on Kahje while you were out there killing people for money? Was that for me?" Kolyat rejoiced internally at the pain that entered his father's eyes and he smirked. "Or, yeah, maybe we should talk about mom. Was having a bunch of criminals you pissed off break into our house and butcher her for me? Or maybe that was Kalahira's will, huh? Oh, and pawning me off on mom's sister and fucking forgetting about me for years? Was that for me, too?"
"Kolyat," Tears were now gathered in Thane's eyes and threatened to fall with every blink of his dual eyelids. "You can't begin to comprehend how much I regret what I've done to us. I never, not even for a moment forgot-"
"You know what? Let me stop you right there." Kolyat gathered his things from the booth. "I'm tired of hearing already about how much you thought of me and how much you care. If this is your way of showing how you care for me, just give it a rest. You should have just stayed away. If you want to die, do it on your own time. I'm done."
Kolyat stormed away from the table heedless to his father's calls for him to wait. There was a grim sense of satisfaction that curled in the back of his mind as he recalled the tears that had finally leaked from Thane's eyes. Maybe now, he mused, his father understood how it felt to be left behind, unwanted, discarded…
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Kolyat shook himself free of his fit of solipsism and glanced around, embarrassed that he had let his memory get away from him. That had been over three weeks ago and Kolyat, by his own choosing, had neither seen nor spoken to his father. It wasn't for lack of trying on Thane's end, however. Nightly Kolyat had been on the receiving end of either an electronic message or call request from his father. The drell was nothing if not persistent. Kolyat had systematically declined all attempts at contact. He was still steaming mad over their last conversation and feared speaking to his father in that state would only cause greater harm than good.
Wrapped up in his anger there was also a disconcerting feeling of guilt. Kolyat, despite how he chose to present himself to the outside world, wasn't heartless. His life experience thus far, however, had left him emotionally stunted and unsure of his place in the world, facts he was all too aware of. It's just that it was so much easier to lash out than it was to sit down and contemplate what was really bothering him.
His father, estranged or not, was the only family he had left and he was dying. He wasn't dying in a year as Kolyat had already resigned himself to given the man's refusal of medical help. No, what little time that had been promised had been slashed in half by his father's own hand. The cool calm with which the older drell seemed to accept his fate, as well as their shortened reunion, had touched a raw nerve in Kolyat.
His father, it seemed to Kolyat, had never had a problem walking away and death didn't seem to be the exception. Kolyat vividly recalled his mother once remarking to a friend of her's that her husband was a passionate man in all aspects of his life as she tried to explain his frequent and prolonged occupational absences. Obsessive was the word Kolyat would have used to describe him if someone asked him his opinion.
Thane Krios had obsessed over his job as an assassin as a means to support his family which had culminated in the murder of his wife. He had then obsessed over Irikah's death which had resulted in him walking away from his only child. He obsessed over religion, worried about the loss of his soul. He obsessed over "making the galaxy a brighter place" which was killing him as surely as Kepral's Syndrome was and driving the wedge of division between him and his son ever deeper. If only, Kolyat mused, he had put as much effort into obsessing over his family they may not be in their current situation.
Kolyat had every right to be bitter and angry given his lot in life. These past few weeks he found himself more and more thankful for the one semi-positive thing he had going in his life: his service obligation to C-Sec. Born of the lowest moment of his life though it was, the job provided a good distraction and something better to focus on rather than the blow out with his father. It also didn't hurt that Bailey had kept his promise of finding him something more challenging to do besides file paper and sweep the floors.
"Alright, Krios, here's the deal…"
Kolyat was startled out of his thoughts by the approach of one of the C-Sec officers under Bailey's command. The officer, a young turian named Paultus Maurtus, was friendly enough but had been less than thrilled when Bailey had asked him to take Kolyat with him for some public relations work. Kolyat wasn't sure if Maurtus was more upset over the fact he was playing babysitter or that his duties for the day didn't involve tracking down law breakers. Regardless, he gave the turian his attention.
"So," the turian began, "I'm sure you're probably familiar with the Council's Public Outreach Initiative…"
"No," Kolyat deadpanned, "I'm not. I've only been on this station about a month and a half."
"Right," Maurtus sighed. "Basically what it is is a bunch of politicians trying to make themselves look good by sending us out here to ask the public for donations to give to the people on the station who have been displaced by all the drama going on out there in the galaxy."
Kolyat quirked a brow. "I can see you're really passionate about the cause."
Maurtus chuckled, "You got me, Krios. I may be a little cynical, alright? I mean, hell, half the people on the Council could come straight out of their own pocket with double what we collect out here and still not be hurting for credits. Between you and me, all this good samaritan shit is put on just for show so people will keep voting them into office. But hey, duty is duty, right?"
"Yeah," Kolyat reluctantly agreed. "I guess so." He took a look around himself. They stood at the entrance to the Kithoi Ward, one of the Citadel's residential areas. "What exactly does this entail?"
Maurtus shrugged, "Not much, really. We basically just go door-to-door asking people if they want to make a donation to the cause." The turian dug around inside one of his pockets and pulled out a small card and handed it to the drell. "Here. Just read this and I'm sure you'll manage."
Kolyat took the card and read over it once before handing it back. "Got it."
"Uh," the turian looked from the man to the card and back again and chuckled. "Right, drell memory. I forgot."
Kolyat merely hummed and turned to look at the rows and rows of individual residences, shops, and eateries that made up the ward. He grimaced at the knowledge that this task would, in all likelihood, be an all-day evolution. To add insult to injury, talking to people, especially asking anyone for help be it for charity or no, was not his strong suit. Reluctantly, he sighed, "Where do you want to start?"
"Me?" Maurtus laughed out loud. "Oh, no. This is all you, Krios." The turian nearly doubled over in laughter at the look of disbelief on the drell's face. "Don't look so put out, man. You're the one serving a sentence, not me. It's nothing personal. Bailey's orders."
"Bailey," Kolyat huffed, "Right."
"I'm serious," Maurtus grinned. "So you better get to it."
"Yeah," Kolyat muttered, giving the giving the turian a death glare as he stalked away. "I'm going to get right to it. Bastard…"
"I heard that, Krios!" Maurtus called out jovially. "Meet back here at 1200 for lunch."
"Yeah, yeah," Kolyat waved him off as he approached the first door and took a deep breath. Squaring himself up he pressed the buzzer, his foot tapping impatiently until the door finally cracked open to reveal a salarian.
"C-Sec? No emergency here. Law-abiding citizen. How can I help?"
Kolyat sighed. He could already tell it was going to be a very, very long day.
End of Chapter 4