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.

Kandros finally turned his head to the sound of Tann's voice and forced his eyes open. "What flase charge do you have me up for now?" He growled.

"Well, you're already one step ahead of Maggie." Quinn snorted as she too stepped through the door way and sat on the cot beside Tyros. "He has saved my life, more than I would care to count. I owe him everything, but our own people treated him like a monster when he dared ask them for help."

"Want to try murder?" Tann said cheerfully.  "I have video evidence that you gave your former right hand the codes to turn off the generator. It was enough to allow the kett to take our dear pathfinder's teammate and medical doctor. It was her order not mine. You're transported to her ship this evening."

"A kett asking for help? Thats new." Qim breathed. "Did he try to hurt them? You? What's he playing at?"

Kandros simply seemed to stare at Tann for the longest time. "I see." He replied simply. "So this is the legnth you will stoop to to hide your dangerous obsession? What fool doesn't change the codes when the head of security is also changed?"

Quinn's lavender eyes flashed with warning as they looked up at Qim. "He saved me from exile, from slavery, and then from their experiments."

"Your leaving was so sudden I have yet to find someone. There has been so many things going on my people haven't had time for something like that." Tann said simply. "I accepted the blame for my part. But yours has killed people. The pathfinder is very upset." The salarian clicked his tongue. "And poor little Maggie. I've bad to hospitalize her for the remainder of her pregnancy because of all this stress. Wouldnt want her to lose the baby would we?" He added with a purr.

Quinn wouldn't be able to read her father's face but he was frowning. "Why would a kett do that? What did he want from you?" He questioned. "I'm not sure I understand. His intentions could not have been entirely noble. Nevermind what he is. He's a man and you are a woman. That's enough to make him untrustworthy."

This was finally what it took to enrage Kandros. The turian lashed out at Tann, striking him again and again until his face was no more than a caved in and bloody pulp. At least, that's how it would have gone, had Kandros not been handcuffed to his bed. All he could do was hurl foul language at the director, swearing he would rip him apart. Slowly.

Oddly, Quinn suddenly grinned. Qim didn't really see the problem as Tyros being a kett, he was a man trying to take advantage of the quarian's daughter. "And what about my intentions?" She mused with a chuckle.

Tann was grinning from ear to ear. He waited until the asari doctor had sedated Kandros to lean over him. "Now I will break her down until she gives in to me. She will be mine completely. Body and soul and you...well...there won't be enough left of you to space." He purred as the turian's ice colored eyes closed. 

"Indeed." Qim muttered tapping his helmet. "I didn't consider that." He chuckled as well and shook his head. "All right then. So...whay happened to him?"

The last thing Kandros recalled was Tann's voice before he fell into a restless darkness. It was there he found Maggie, he sweet face so happy and carefree. That didn't last, soon he was lost in a nightmare.

"I was... injured. He took me to a human colony to try and get help." Quinn began, gently running her fingers over Tyros' rough face. "They took me to the infirmary, but locked him in a cage, said he couldn't be trusted. Cutting to the point, I had to disable to generators to free him, only I didn't know a kett hunting party were waiting to invade the settlement right at that moment."

Kandros would be able to see what Tann had done to Maggie. His nightmare would be to hear her screaming his name, all for nothing. 

"Do you see what I was saying?" Jaal said to his lover as Tann marched out of the infirmary. "There is something strange going on with that alien."

"And let me guess. The settlement was all but wiped out?" Qim asked, not seeming a bit surprised. "The Initivie is a bunch of boshtits. They understand nothing. They don't try."

Sara nodded, watching Tann from where they stood in the shadows. "He was so insistent that Kandros be punished, but I've yet to see any evidence other than hearsay that tells me the turian is actually guilty."

Quinn nodded her head. "Either killed, or taken back to the ship. The kett that lead them though... He was called Hunter, and intentionally let Tyros and I go. He said he wanted to thrill of actually hunting us down."

"I saw the way he feels for her." Jaal said thoughtfully. "I'm wondering if that has something to do with this. I suggest we take the young woman with us just until this matter is cleared up." 

"Tyros? Is that what you said? He was our pilot. He sacrificed himself for me. The kett took him...i never saw him again. Are you saying...that is him?" Qim asked softly.

"That's your department. Me... not so good at the stealthy sneaking." Sara chuckled. "I could distract Tann though, we know how much he loves to lecture me on all the rules I'm breaking."

"Well... that's what he said his name was." Quinn replied with a puzzled expression. She didn't deal in coincidence.

"You know I love it when you talk about rule breaking." Jaal purred, pressing a kiss to Sarah's lips as he turned to leave. "Be careful. Tann is more dangerous these days than those past."

"So the kett can change others. That's terrifying. He was a beautiful drell. You would have been fascinated. I will search my tool for a vid of him..." Qim muttered, clearly lost in thought. "Do you love him?"

Sara waved a hand over her shoulder as she left, a signal that her lover shouldn't worry so much. After all, was he really so reckless as to kill a pathfinder?

Quinn was again watching Tyros as he slept, thinking about their early days together. "We annoyed each other something terrible..." she mused with a faint smile. "I... often told him he spoke like a drell, and he kidnapped me to teach him about humans. A lot has happened, but Tyros has never hurt me." It wasn't lost on Quinn that she hadn't answered Qim's question about love. That was between her and Tyros.

Jaal sat across from Peebe hours later, worry filling his gut. The two of them had the young woman on the ship but Sarah Ryder had never joined them. What made it worse was that Tann seemed to have gone missing as well.

"You didn't answer." Qim told her. He wasn't going to let that one pass. She was his daughter after all.

"You suspected he was up to something, and still let her go to him alone?" Peebee asked, irritation in her voice when the woman they both loved failed to show up.

"You caught that, huh?" Quinn asked with a wry smirk. "Did you love my mother?" She asked, turning the question back on him.

"You know as well as I do you do not tell Ryder what to do." Jaal snapped. "I simply followed her instructions and waited as I always do. If you know best you get out of line and look for her." He frowned. 

"Keelah..." Qim's head went down. "So much so that my body hurts every time I think of her. She is my world...my galaxy...I miss her more than I can ever say. But she...chose your father. She allowed him to try and kill me..."

"Fine! I'll do that!" Peebee huffed, though didn't get to her feet. She knew Jall was right, she just didn't like it.

"She allowed a lot of things to happen." Quinn breathed sadly. "I don't know how anyone could love a woman like that."

"Besides, her stalling has given us time get both the...what do you call them...bond mates here together. Now you and Ryder can play match makers while we continue to search for Drak and Lexi."

"What was wrong with her? She was a good woman. So gentle and kind. She had a wonderful laugh and smile that I could not turn away from. You must have seen it too."

Peebee suddenly broke out in a huge grin and nodded. "It will be perfect! Such a tragic story that will make awesome entertainment!"

Quinn's stoney expression betrayed the fact she had most certainly not seen that side of her mother. "Hard to smile at a child you allow your husband to experiment on, wouldn't you say?"

"Let's not play with them as you did Ryder. Ok?" Jaal said firmly, his hearts nearly jumping out of his chest when the airlock opened and his beloved stepped inside. He got to his feet and held out his hands for her. "What happened? Are you all right?" 

"You know that it wasn't your step father who did that. It was me." Qim confessed. "I was trying to make sure the two of you could survive. I never meant to hurt either of you."

Peebee was openly sulking as Jaal got to his feet. "Who was playing..." She muttered to herself.
Sara nodded, though was only smiling slightly. "The rat was all business, and the good of the initiative. Makes my skin crawl." she replied as she ignored Jaal's outstretched hands to embrace him instead.

Quinn's lavender gaze narrowed at Qim as she tried to control her temper. "Well you failed. Maggie can't live without the serum my blood makes."

Jaal sighed deeply. He would never understand humans and the way they greeted one another. Just when he thought he had it down Sarah seemed to need something else from him. "We have the two here. I think I may have made a mistake by telling Peebee to play matchmaker with them. I hope you can forgive me." He told his lover gently. 

"I fixed that few months back actually. I got in contact with a salarian named Tann. I gave him the serum and asked him to give it to her." Qim said quickly. "You two are really fighting so much that she hasn't told you?"

Sara wrinkled up her pert nose, though smiled slightly at this news. "Really? you sure you want to set Peebee loose on those poor, unsuspecting people?"

Quinn's jaw was painfully tight as this news settled. "No. She failed to mention that." She replied thinly. "Why should she care? She can love her turian, but I'm not allowed to love my kett without being called a traitor?" She snapped, unintentionally answering Qim's earlier question.

"It will distract her for a bit. What can I say?" Jaal answered with a sheepish grin. 
As if on cue Maggie poked her head into the kitchen, looking as if she were lost. She didn't say anything to them, afraid she'd once again gone somewhere she wasn't wanted. 

"I see." Qim nodded. It had been easier than he thought to get her to admit her feelings. "So...he was attacked by your mother's kind or a kett? And why?"

"And why exactly... would she need... distracting?" Ryder purred, leaning close with each moment until Maggie's appearance punctured their little moment. 

Quinn shrugged her slender shoulders. She knew it was childish, but it made her feel slightly better. She had been running for so long now since her exile that the soldier was aware she was getting a little too thin. "Does it matter? He's injured, and now hunted by his own kind, while the initiative think i'm a traitor responsible for the death and abduction of an entire colony."

Maggie didn't know what to think of the Angaran. Shed never been around them and was quick to shy away. She'd had enough bad luck lately to keep her turning away from basically everyone for a lifetime as it was. 

"Then you will stay with me. I stay off the grid. Until I was betrayed by...nevermind...the pod broke down and I couldn't get back to where I stay. But I cn now. You'll stay with me. I'll protect you both." Qim promised.

"Go check on our 'prisoner', I'll handle this." Ryder breathed, patting Jaal's chest lightly before turning away.

Quinn wanted to believe him, but trust was a painful concept lately. "He needs medicine, I can protect us." she replied, wanting to sound firm and defensive, though she was so tired that it hardly came across that way.

Maggie hid herself in the kitchen area, terrified of what she didn't understand. This was, however, better than being locked away in Tann's private hospital lab where he had already begun to fill her with his dark poison. These were both literal and figurative. 

"You are running on empty, child." Qim admonished her. He turned back in the direction of his pod and returned with arm loads of vials. "You rest. I will help him."

"Maggie?" Ryder was calling the other woman's name gently. "Are you hungry?" She added, assuming that's why she was in the kitchen.

Quinn was still shaking her head, even though she could barely keep her eyes open now. It wouldn't take long for her to simply collapse in a exhausted heap beside Tyros. "No... I promised..."

Maggie backed herself under the tables. She'd taken all the chairs and shoved them into the opening. Ryder would have a tough time getting in. 

Qim directed their ship back to his home on Voeld. But only after finding the tracking chip deep in the kett's stomach. He was only a little shamed that the creature had screamed in agony. 
He'd taken his daughter to sleep in his room, glad to have her back again. He and Tyros were up discussing landing techneiques as the hours passed. The two of them striking up their friendship as if nothing had ever happened.