Love and War

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"I swear to even the Asari goddess that when I get out of here, that lizard Kandros will wish I was an exile for what I'm gonna do to him!" Quinn Talos raged as she was unceremoniously shoved into a holding cell on the operations deck. The dark haired woman paced for time, thinking it was would all be straightened out once Tann got wind of what Kandros had done. She should have known better. As far as she believed, human's still weren't exactly favourites of the other alien species. On earth Quinn had an excellent service record within the Alliance, just as most members of her family did, but she had wanted more. She wanted to explore, to see things no human ever had, which was why she signed up for a place on the Andromeda Initiative. The only problem was, she wasn't the pathfinder, and her superiors didn't believe in security personal leaving the Nexus. As well as she performed her job, the call sign 'Cutie', thanks to her unfortunate initials, meant she wasn't exactly taken seriously. Quinn was slumped on the floor with her back against the wall now, glaring at the Turian guard outside the forcefield. She had fought her hardest for the safety of everyone on the Nexus, and this was her reward; being called a traitor and about to be dumped on some godforsaken planet with the rest of the exile scum. All because Kandros feared losing what little power he had to her. The asshole can keep it, she thought bitterly.

"You never gave up. Not once." Kandros was beside Maggie's bed now that he had calmed down. He had hold of her hands, unaware he was reliving the same memory she was right then. "I was moments from death, I had accepted my fate, but bold little Maggie just wouldn't allow it." He continued with a chuckle. "The princess always had to have her way, right?"

"I'm not the only human in this galaxy." Quinn replied softly. "There are many back in Kadara port who could answer your questions... Even the ones you had about the human reproductive system." she added with a tiny smile as her fingers touched the mark the book he had tossed at her had left on her forehead.

He had called her terrible names and thrown things at her. But shed come back every day. She'd even brought him turian chocolates. 
She walked the halls with him and endured his abuse about how much he hated humans. She wasn't sure when it had changed but one day he began asking her questions. And then one day there was the whisper in her ear and the shared laughter.  And then came the kiss.

"Fine. Then when we get there you will show them to me." Tyros said matter of factly. "But I hate to point out that you are very wrong indeed."

"I came here trying to prove myself better than my family... You changed that, I only wanted to prove I was good enough. Good enough for you." The medbay was dark and quiet now, Kandros and his lover the only ones here. "Maggie... You can't leave me. You're not done fixing me yet." The proud turian leaned his head down, pressing it against Maggie's shoulder as he breathed her in.

"About what?" Quinn asked simply, her lavender eyes not exactly filled with the same hopeful fire her sisters often were. Quinn had always prepared for the worst, which meant she often missed the best.

Maggie gave a soft sigh, her heart rate dropping. She was remembering the night Kandros had spent in her apartment and made her promise she would never tell anyone that she had been with him. 

"About the humans who are willing to answer my questions." Tyros said, scowling at the monitor in front of him.

Kandros heard the beep of the monitor and was quick to sit up again. "No... no, no, NO!" He shouted, on his feet and giving Maggie a shake. "Don't you dare break your promise, girl! We were going to stop the kett, together!"

"You could always kidnap another one?" Quinn suggested, not taking her eyes off her strange alien rescuer. "I'm not worth the trouble I'm causing, really."

Kandris was ashamed of her just like her sister. Nobody wanted her to know her. How to stupid she was to think someone could love her...

"It's no trouble." Tyros smiled. "Or maybe it wouldn't be if I knew how to open this blasted thing."

Kadnros was frantically searching the room for something to wake Maggie with now, he knew nothing of what had been said between the sisters. "Princess... Please..." He was pleading and close to tears and he simply fell to his knees beside her bed. Though he had never said the words, Kandros had always known how he felt. "...I love you."

Quinn gestured to the unconscious guards with a nod of her head. "They had a device on their wrist, activate it and you can access the door controls.

"You once told me that the different races should never intermix." Tann said from the doorway. "You were the one who said we probably shouldn't allow humans on the Nexus. Much less allow them to take part in the Initiative. 
"So why are you now confessing to love one? The very one who's sister you had booted off the station only to have her return with a kett in tow. Kandros, I believe you have lost you mind old friend." The Salarian said darkly.

Tyros did as Quinn instructed, struggling with the simple controls of the door. "Why do I seem to remember this being easier in the past?" He asked, as if the dark haired woman would have the answer.

"Perhaps I have." Kandros breathed without looking up from where his face was still buried against Maggie. "She's changed me, Tann. In the past I would have fought it to my dying breath, but... I don't want to. I don't want to let any part of her go."

Quinn was stood simply looking up at the alien who was both her captor and rescuer. She couldn't explain why some things he said seemed stranger than others. "I thought the kett knew everything?" She finally asked with the ghost of a smile.

"Then...perhaps I can offer you a solution. Our scientists have been working with the one on the Tempest. They believe they have discovered how the kett become who they are. At least in part. They use the blood of another to boost themselves. 
"The asari who saved your lover has come up with a cure. Kett and turian blood mixed. She believes it will save Maggie Talos completely. 
"However...it comes with risks. Since she is human this may very well finish her. But at this point...what do you really have to lose? They tell me she has hours at best. Even if she fights it." Tann finished gently, holding out a syringe. "I offer you this because Maggie once saved my life as well. I owe it to her to try."

"Not the kett. No. But I'm pretty close to it." Tyros gave her a grin. "Once you answer all my questions I will know all and I can conquer...breakfast...isnt that what you call it where you eat a chicken?" He asked, frowning.

Kandros stared at Tann, then the syringe, then Maggie. It was clear what he wanted to do, but was torn between that and what Maggie would want. "Will... She still be herself?" He whispered, sounding like a frightened boy. "It wont change her like the kett change others?"

Quinn was surprised when she suddenly burst out laughing. "Yes! We eat chickens and run around naked in the dawn light!" She teased.

"There's no way to tell." Tann said, his voice sad. "But since she has...no likelihood of survival otherwise...what choice do you really have?" 

Tyros looked taken aback by this and shook his head. "Humans are really strange, aren't they?"

Kandros was gently stroking his fingers through Maggie's hair as he thought it over. "She may hate me forever, but... I can't lose her. I would rather she go on living and never speak to me again, than lose her completely."

Quinn shook her head. "The asari have such long lives, the krogan are damn near indestructible, and there's even a race called the drell in my home galaxy who remember every single moment that they experience. Trust me, humans are as vanilla as they come."

Tann sat the syringe on the edge of the bed and turned to leave. "If she does survive, keep her away from that nasty sister of hers. Shed the reason she's dying so quickly anyway." He grumbled, leaving the turian alone with his lover.

"Uhm...is that..." Tyros had so many questions but the shouting in the hall kept him from it. He grabbed Quinn by the wrist and ran in the opposite direction.

Those words would stay with Kandros, but for now he couldn't dwell on them. He was still sat by Maggie's bedside now, unable to do anything but wait as the gene therapy went to work.

Quinn was clearly not one to allow others to take control of her, but for some reason she found herself doing exactly the opposite of her gut when she was around this kett. For now she was letting him pull her along, somehow evading whatever commotion was happening.

Outwardly the therapy seemed to do nothing. It wasn't until well into the next day that Maggie opened her eyes. Her vitals had stabilized completely. Oddly enough nothing seemed to have changed.  
It just so happened to be when the asari forced Kandros to step out for coffee that Maggie awoke, calling for him.

Tyros found them an escape pod and launched it. And he'd somehow managed to do it without killing anyone at all. He didn't say anything else until they were well on the way to Kadara. 
"Do you suppose we'll find a human to answer my questions?" He asked almost quietly.

Kandros was practically falling into his coffee cup he was so tired. The asari had forced him to sit at a table in a quiet corner, hoping he would indeed finally get some rest. They hadn't thought Maggie would wake so soon.

"Why are you so curious about humans?" Quinn asked. The escape pod was small to the point of being cramped, meaning there was little to do but talk to each other any way.

Maggie had taken off her wires and ivs and was intent on going home. Since the med bay was quiet there was no one to stop her. She walked right past the sleeping kandros, not even recognizing him. 

"You are all loud and opinionated. " Tyros told her. "The other species are not like that at all. I want to understand what makes you so loud. And...what is a drell?"

Kandros woke only when he fell out of his chair and scared himself awake. The turian laughed at the situation until he quickly remembered Maggie. All hell broke loose when he found her bed empty and he started shouting kidnap.

"You're telling me you never met a species with an opinion?" Quinn asked, her feet resting on the seat next to Tyros as she stretched her legs out. "I've never actually met a drell, only heard stories and seen vids. But they have this voice..." Her voice trailed of and she smiled again. "Maybe that's just a girl feeling, you probably wouldn't understand." She mused.

The human nurse was cowering in front of him as he shouted at her. She'd dropped all the supplies she was carrying and was all but crawling under the bed. "There was no one here! I swear!" She wailed. "Miss Talos was asleep when I left!"

Tyros laughed at her. "You couldn't possibly have a girl feeling if you've never met one. How would you even know what one sounded like? Are you sure you even know what a girl feeling is?"

"She wasn't asleep, she was unconscious! Unconscious little girls don't just get up and walk about!" Kandros insisted, though he was already sweeping from the room with all the anger of an enraged krogan. The chief of security was tapping at his omni tool as he went, trying to locate Maggie.

Quinn's lavender eyes were so very sad when Tyros asked this of her. "You're right... I guess I don't know." she breathed, seeming so small and vulnerable with that realisation.

The barely clothed barefoot young woman was simply walking through the terminal. She seemed confused and afraid but no one was stopping to help her. In fact most people were taking great pains to avoid her.

"Did I say something wromg?" Tyros asked, suddenly feeling as if as enormous chasm had opened up between the two of them.

Kandros had noticed the stream of people that weren't exactly fleeing, but they seemed certain they didn't wish to walk in the other direction. He listened to his gut and headed that way any way and was soon souring his lovers name, his hands on her slender shoulders to try and pull her to a halt. 

Though the pod was so small that it was hard to do much as breathe without touching another person, Quinn felt the chasm too. Her who purpose in life had been to keep Maggie alive, and not only was she failing, she had ignored her own needs. "Sorry, no... it's not you." She assured the strange alien softly. Here she was, fleeing for her life with the enemy of her people and the man who had once kidnapped her.

Maggie turned, terror written all over her slender face and in the depths of her now ice colored eyes.  "K-kandros?" She breathed. "I couldn't find you...no one would help me..."

"Are you alright?" Tyros was sure he'd done something wrong and begun trying to think back to if he'd somehow hit Quinn on the head. She no longer seemed like herself. "I get it...you are doing the girl thing around me. Is that it?" He asked, offering her a wicked grin.

"What do you mean... No one would help?" Kandros breathed, glancing round and indeed noticing that there was no one in sight. "Come on... You shouldn't be moving around." He added quickly, trying to turn her back in the direction of the med bay.

Quinn laughed, much in the way someone did when upset and a friend was trying to make them smile. "To be honest, I don't even think I know how to be a girl." She confessed. "Not that you would know if I was, right?" She added with a lopsided grin of her own.

"I want to go home." Maggie said quietly, shivering. "No would help." She said that again, this time shaking her head. 

"I would too. I stole a feed one time where a krogan said asari and human females had fun bags and the males didn't. Can I see yours?" Tyros asked her innocently.

"We can go home soon, I promise." Kandros breathed as he lifted Maggie's slight frame up into his arms. "But first you need to see a doctor." It almost seemed like he was intentionally avoiding talk of how close to death she had been... and what exactly had saved her.

Quinn's lavender eyes grew suddenly wide, having not been expecting to hear that from Tyros. "I think you've seen all you're gonna see of me when you took my armour off." She informed him. "Besides, didn't your book tell you all about... Fun bags?" She asked, smirking somewhat.

"No. No more doctors." Maggie said firmly. "Quinn...she...she told me how she feels about me. How you feel about me. I'm not going to be a burden anymore. It was selfish of me to do it in the first place."

"I can't read." Tyros whispered, hanging his head. "And I saw nothing of you...i looked away."

"What does Quinn know about how I feel for you?" Kandros asked sternly. "Maggie, forget her. She partnered with a kett, how trustworthy can her word truly be?"

"Promise?" Quinn asked, folding her arms across her chest as she watched Tyros closely. "Because if you peeked... I should get to kick your ass. Those are the rules."

"You told me I was being irrational when I got upset about that." Maggie pointed out. 

"You can try." Tyros snorted, tilting up his head in a cocky manner. "But I am a kett. We are not known for being defeated."