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.

"Only pretend?" Kandros asked with a boyish grin, still holding onto Maggie, as though he may never get the chance to again.

Quinn nodded her head. She had no real desire to seek Ardwin out for punishment, not yet anyway. That could wait, she was more interested in finding the crash sight she now couldn't chase from her thoughts.

"I can hope it changes..." Maggie breathed. "But we'll have to work at it." She added almost sadly. "You never to romance me like you promised."

"Did you steal a ship?" Tyros asked her. "We need to get out of here. I have a feeling this is not a place for us."

"I..." Kandros had no comeback for that. "I tried... I paced outside your door for half an hour trying to think of something romantic to say, some gesture that would sweep you off your feet, like in the vids I watched. When it came down to it... I wasn't good enough." He told her honestly.

"Not yet, but I can get us one." Quinn assured her companion as she again marched for the exit. The young woman was never one to simply sit back and let others fix her situation, evident in the way she had signed up with the initiative, all to cut ties with her father.

"How do you figure?" Maggie asked him. "Up until everything went wrong you and I had been secret lovers. You were the one who seduced me. Remember? What changed?"

"I trust you." Tyros said gently. He reached out for her but came up short, not sure she'd want him to touch her.

Kandros chuckled softly and shook his head. "If I recall, there was hardly much seduction needed. You couldn't resist."

Quinn barely spoke again until they were hurtling through the planets atmosphere and away from any further harm Ardwin could cause. The shuttle was barely bigger than the pod they had landed here in, but it served their needs. It was as she piloted the craft that Quinn was going over and over the things Ardwin had said; mostly the part about her mother having had an affair with a quarian.

"Tiran Kandros, are you calling me a slut?" Maggie scowled at this, seeming hurt by his words rather than taking them in jest. "My sister said the same when I told her I was in love with a turian so I guess maybe...its true..."

"What are you thinking about?" Tyros asked as he watched her face. "I worry it will stick like that if you continue to frown so hard."

"What?!" Kandros was genuinely horrified at hearing this. "Maggie, no! That's not what I..." He was stumbling over his words, trying to make her understand that was farthest from the truth. "As for Quinn, she was miserable, and just wanted you to be too!"

Quinn realised she had been staring into space and glanced across at Tyros when his voice broke into her thoughts. "Oh, sorry..." She breathed sheepishly, leaning away from the ships controls to sit back in her seat. "With eveything that's happened lately... I'm not sure about anything i thought I knew anymore."

"You keep saying that." Maggie whispered. "I should have stayed home. My mother tried to keep me from joining the Initivie. But I was so sure I wanted to make a difference. I haven't done anything. Not like Quinn. I should have married that man my mother kept Trying to get me to."

"I keep wondering that myself. I thought I was kett but I'm not so sure. There are times when I wake up with dreams that I was something...someone else..."

"Would that have made you happy, marrying a human back on the citadel?" Kandros asked honestly. "Maggie, I only ever wanted what made you happy, even if I was an asshole when it came to showing it. I was so wrapped up in procedure, that I thought keeping our relationship was the right thing. I... I know now that I was completely wrong."

"What if we are? Something other than what we think?" Quinn asked seriously, still wrapping her thoughts around the idea that she and Maggie had quarian blood.

"But even when you had a chance to change things you were too embarrassed of me to do them." Maggie pointed out. "That's really why you couldn't knock on my door that night, isn't it?" 

"That would explain a lot. For both of us." Tyros agreed. "What did that man say to you that has these thoughts swirling through your mind this way, Quinn?" He asked her, staring at her dark hair.

Kandros felt like he was drowning, and Maggie was the one holding his head below the water. "You've taken my insecurity and twisted it into something ugly, something it certainly isn't." He told her sadly. "You wanted grand romantic gestures, something humans are good at... something that is alien to turian culture."

Quinn was silent for some moments, wondering if she was simply stupid for believing Ardwin even a little. "He... claims my mother was having an affair with a quarian. That's not the part I'm struggling with, he... says that man is my father, which would mean he is Maggie's father also. It... I suppose it explains her poor immune system, but that would mean the man I believed was my father knew all along, as they had to match my blood to hers, and alter my DNA to make it strong enough to fix her."

"Ok." Maggie didn't know what else to say. She felt like she was doing everything wrong. Everything she said was coming out wrong and hurtful. "Kandros...just...go..." she finally whispered. 

"Then...what do we do to figure this out? Where do we find a quarian?" Tyros asked, looking down at the directional map in front of them.

"That's... what you want?" Kandros breathed. "After everything that's happened, that Tann has done, you really want that?"

Quinn sighed heavily, knowing there were none. "We can't. Each species had their own ark for the journey to this galaxy, except the quarians, they shared their with the drell and any other species that wished to make the trip, as there were far fewer quarian when compared to humans or krogans." She let out another heavy sigh. "No one has heard from their ark since it left the milky way."

"I don't know what I want." Maggie was nervously pulling at the ends of her hair. "I used to think I did...but you...you don't seem to want the same thing." She breathed. "I'm feeling lost and really alone right now, Kandros."

"Then how do you know there was a crash site?" Tyros asked, feeling like he was missing something. "Quinn...corgive me for saying so but I think you need sleep. Lots of it."

Kandros pulled Maggie into his arms once more and held her tightly. "You're not alone, I abandoned my post to come and find you, to help you."

Quinn nodded slightly, though she felt Tyros was the one with the answers. "I never entertained the thought of a crash sight until you kissed me, that's when I saw it." She told him.

Maggie didn't know how it started but she soon found herself lying beneath Kandros on the bed. The two of them were fumbling with their clothing, tossing it aside as their lips met in desperate, hungry kisses. 
Elsewhere a furious Tann was watching things unfold.

"Perhaps we should recreate those events again and see what becomes of it." Tyros suggested. "Only this time it will be on your terms and only if you want to." He breathed.

Kandros didn't even care if the slimy salarian could see everything. In fact, he hoped he could, it would make it quite clear the director had no means of coming between them as he hoped.

Quinn was surprised that she wasn't saying no. After what Ardwin had made her through, she had thought she would never want anyone to touch her ever again. Yet here she was, actually grinning at Tyros. "Bet you say that to all the earth girls, huh?" She teased.

Tann was hissing and spitting at his desk, his attitude having gone sour. He turned off his monitor and screamed for Kesh, demanding to know where Kandros was. 

Maggie didn't get to enjoy her lover for long. Kesh was already calling, warning him that Tann was on that hunt for him.

"Only the beautiful ones who are mean to me." Tyros teased her. He sat watching her, wishing he could figure her out. At the very least remove the sadness from behind her eyes.

Kandros groaned when his omni tool started beeping. "I can ignore it, you know..." He told Maggie, still holding her against his as his rough fingers traced her smooth skin lightly. He often wondered how humans and asari could be so resilient with such soft skin.

"I'm only mean to the the weird guys who kidnap me." Quinn replied with another grin, her gaze holding his for a long moment before she returned to plotting their course. "I haven't forgotten, you know." She suddenly informed him. "That you owe me armour, you know... seeing as you undressed me when you stole me away." She added with a smirk.

"Ok..." for a moment Maggie forgot he important Kandros was. She only knew that he was important to her. 

"That armor was worthless. You humans call it shit. It didn't even have a mass effect field. Someone had disabled the shields." Tyros snorted. "I did you a favor."

Kandros was smiling, knowing it was probably the nexus trying to contact him. He imagined Tann was in a rotten mood about now. He knew they needed to decide what happened next, as he would most likely be court marshalled for leaving like he had, but he didn't care.

Quinn's dark brow was arched in amusement when Tyros told her this. "I'm a biotic, I was still protected." She replied.

"You sure you shouldn't answer that? What if it's the pathfinder? You're not just some random turian you know." Maggie said gently. 

"Do you plan to tell your sister this new information?" Tyros asked. He had allowed several long minutes of silence to pass and had finally decided he couldn't take it anymore. He had so many questions.

"I could be." Kandros replied honestly, needing Maggie to know he would give up everything for her.

"Tell her what? That some pirate fed me a lie?" Quinn replied. "No, until I have actual proof, I can't worry Maggie with this, it's the last thing she needs."

"That's the most romantic thing you've ever said to me." Maggie breathed, pressing her lips to his. 

"What's so different about being a quarian?" Tyros asked. "Why would it worry her? Why does it worry you?"

Kandros laughed, even as they both tumbled to the ground. "Then maybe there's hope for me yet."

"It doesn't worry me, I'm a genetic freak, remember? But Maggie... it could mean complications with her condition." Quinn breathed, blissfully ignorant to the changes her elder sister had undergone recently.

Kesh was waiting for them when they arrived on the Nexus. She didn't look happy. "Tann is yelling at everyone. I told him you went to meet with the pathfinder."

"I see." Tyros nodded. "Don't you think it's strange that a child like that was even born? Perhaps like you your sister was genetically made to some extent as well."

"He's upset?" Kandros asked cheerfully, keeping his arm around Maggie's shoulders as they walked. 

"I don't think even my family would be that cruel." Quinn replied. "Why create someone to be physically weak? Besides, they took great pleasure in reminding me that I was only ever brought into existence to cure Maggie. If that's true, why modify her to be that way in the first place?" She didn't expect and answer of Tyros, she was merely thinking out loud.

"Why would that make you happy?" Kesh asked, looking from Kandros to Maggie. "The whole Meridian thing was a night mare and our people didn't help anything. He's blaming that on you. He says you sent your favorite people on purpose. It's causing an uproar." 

"What if your mother was in love with one of them and did it to herself? Perhaps so she could have a child?" Tyros pondered. "She may have been so in love she didn't think about the consequences. Or didn't care."

"I see, and he had no part in this?" Kandros asked, his attitude suddenly cooling. "I didn't pick the team, he did that all on his own."

Quinn held no real love for her mother, and so hadn't considered the thought the woman may have simply been a fool in love. "That doesn't excuse the things she did." She replied, unable to mask the hurt in her voice when she spoke of her mother.

"There's no proof." Kesh was alredy shaking her head. "They are blaming the deaths on Maggie. There's talk of sending her...you get the idea..."

"What if perhaps...you were more of a punishment from your father than a test tube?" Tyros asked. "What if you too were a love child of the q uarian father and they just managed to get you correct where they had failed with Maggie..." He was nodding now, lost in his thoughts. "It doesn't seem to far fetched when it's put that way..."