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.

Ryder simply sat down where she was when she saw the barricade Maggie had made. "Well, I guess dinner is off the menu." She mused out loud.

It would be close to two days later when Quinn finally woke. She didn't recognise her surroundings, and soon came tearing through the home shouting Tyros' name.

"Please Tann...let Kandros go. I already said I'd marry you. Send him to Kadara. Please...let me make a deal for his life." Maggie was sobbing, not even really listening to Ryder's voice. "I'll give you anything." She whimpered, moving closer to the door. 

"Quinn..." Tyros got to his feet when he heard her shouting his name, his eyes filled with concern. "What....what is the matter?" He asked, pulling her into his arms.

"That rat bastard, I knew it!" Ryder growled. "Maggie, you're safe now. Tann can't touch you here. Do you know where you are?" She added, much more gently.

The young woman sagged with relief when Tyros pulled her into his arms and she returned his embrace. "You're okay..." She breathed. After everything they had been through, waking in strange surroundings alone was far from comforting.

Tann's poison still had to work it's way out of the small woman now pulling aside chairs and tables with shaking hands. "Please..." she didn't even see the person she was pleading with. Only the salarian that haunted her every waking nightmare. "I promise not to fight you anymore. Just let him go. I love him, Tann. You know I do... I...I promise not to say that anymore....if you let him live. I'll love you instead. I...i can do that..." her voice cracked, her hands shook as she grabbed at the hand that in her feverish haze told her belonged to her tormentor.

Tyros felt the same. The young couple had had the worst luck of anyone in their galaxy it seemed.
 He rested His chin on her head and gave a soft sigh. "For once we have come out the victors, my love. We have found your father. You are safe with him. You are...home. At last."

Ryder's heart was breaking for the young woman now holding her hands. She had been through hell, and still only thought of her turian. "Maggie, I need you to think real clear now. Remember for me, how we brought you off the Nexus? I made sure Tann didn't see you. You're safe now, my crew have you back."

Suddenly Quinn seemed to remember that Tyros had been injured and jerked herself out of his arms to look him over. "You're not in pain, are you? I had a dream... You were screaming in agony, and then... it just stopped."

"What? No!" It took her a moment but Maggie reacted badly to being told where she was. "You have to take me back! Tann is going to kill my boyfriend. I have to save him. Please!"

Tyros' eyes darkened for just a minute and then he smiled. "Your father fixed me. I'm fine." He told her softly. "How are you? You've been sleeping for two days. I was worried. "

Ryder held tight to Maggie, resting her cheek on the small woman's head. "What if I told you Kandros was safe? Would that calm you down?" She breathed.

"Two days?!" Quinn exclaimed, her lavender eyes saucer wide as she looked up at Tyros. "Why didn't you wake me?!"

"I'm not sure I would believe you." Maggie whispered. "I have been lied to so many times...Tann made me watch them beating him. He didn't even fight back. It was all my fault. Please..."

"You needed the rest." Qim told her gently from where he sat. He held a deck of cards in his odd fingers, laying them flat on table in front of him. "He wanted to wake you. I wouldn't let him."

"I'm not sure I would believe you." Maggie whispered. "I have been lied to so many times...Tann made me watch them beating him. He didn't even fight back. It was all my fault. Please..."

"You needed the rest." Qim told her gently from where he sat. He held a deck of cards in his odd fingers, laying them flat on table in front of him. "He wanted to wake you. I wouldn't let him."

"He didn't fight back because he thought he was protecting you." Ryder breathed. "Is it any different to you letting Tann think he had you?"

"Not your choice." Quinn replied rather childishly. "I don't have time to be lying around!"

"Its not like that. He doesn't love me. He thinks... I disgust him. You would be disgusted too of you knew."  Maggie's memories played over the hesitation in Kandros' voice and the look in his deep blue eyes. He was disgusted. Just as her sister had been. Quinn hated her. 

"Why not? You have found what you were looking for. Right?" Qim asked her. 
"He's right." Unlike her father's cheerful tone Tyros sounded sad and distant. "There's no need for me anymore either."

"You look fine to me, no oozing pus filled boils that I can see." Ryder teased. "Why would I be disgusted? And why would your sister hate you? Didn't she betray the colony to aid the kett?"

"What?" Quinn looked genuinely heartbroken when Tyros breathed those words. "Why would you think that?"

"I..." Maggie didn't want to tell her another person. She didn't want yet another person to give her that look of pure disgust. "I can't. I deserve to go back to Tann. You shouldn't have taken me away from him." The tiny flutter inside her reminded her why even the man she loved now hated her. 

"I mean...you have what you wanted...right?" Tyros whispered, his heart breaking at the thought of losing his beloved. "I...am unimportant now. Right?"

"Then what am I supposed to tell the beat up turian in my infirmary?" Ryder asked, still not letting go of Maggie.

A fat tear rolled down Quinn's cheek, very much against her will. What kind of monster was she, that the only man she had ever loved assumed she had been using him simply to get what it was he thought she wanted? "And what is that?" She asked, her voice cracking as she spoke those few words.

"Can i...see him? While he's asleep?" Maggie asked hopefully. "I need to touch him. I know it sounds stupid but I love him even if he can't stand me." 

"You have a family." Tyros whispered, rubbing the tears off her cheeks. "Please don't cry my love. It breaks my heart to see you sad."

"What makes you think he can't stand you?" Ryder asked gently. "No matter what Tann had done to him, your boyfriend wouldn't give up on you."

"You are my family!" Quinn insisted. "You never gave up on me. Why would you leave now?" She whispered, unable to stop the tears that replaced the ones he wiped away.

Maggie took Ryder's hand and placed it on the already large swell of her belly. "This is why." She hissed though her teeth. "I am disgusting to him. He wishes I were dead. Just like my sister." 

"I don't want to leave. I just thought...maybe..." Tyros didn't know what else to say. "Asking you to remain...to be my wife...would be a foolish thing. You have what you were desperately looking for."

"Sweetie, he doesn't wish you were dead." Ryder assured Maggie gently, letting her hand continue to rest against the other woman's belly. "This is scary for him too, you know. He failed you, and he knows it, and has to live with it."

A tear leaked off Quinn's chin, though no more fell. Her watery lavender eyes were staring up at Tyros now, having never in all her life thought anyone would consider her as a wife. "A-are you? Asking?" She breathed uncertainly, afraid she would make a fool of herself.

The infant shifted, rolling into Ryder's hand. "I'm not going to make him live with it. And besides, this wasn't a forever thing for him. He was going to get tired of me sooner or later and with a baby on tow I'm guessing it's sooner." Maggie said softly.

"I wanted it to be dramatic and beautiful but...im afraid of losing you as well." Tyros confessed. "So...yes..."

"Wow, being pregnant made you clairvoyant too?" Ryder asked with an arched brow.

Quinn allowed herself a moment to let it settle in, then grinned at Tyros, throwing her arms around him before showing him with kisses. "If only my asshole stepdad was around to hear someone has proved him wrong, there is someone dumb enough to want me." She added with a grin.

"You didn't see him. Or hear him." Maggie whispered. "I can't punish the baby for something Tann did. It's not his fault. But I can't punish Kandros for it either. For the remainder of the time he would see the baby and see only that dark...thing....I did the right thing by letting him go. He would hate me even more than he does now if I hadn't
"Can I see him now?"
 
"Wait...what are you saying?" Tyros said, pretending to be hurt by her words. "Are you calling me dumb? I think I know very well what I want. I always have." 
"Are you sure that is wise?" Qim asked, watching them. "I'm not sure he can ever be turned back to a drell..."

"Maybe you're right, maybe he did only see the dark deed that had been forced upon you." Ryder agreed. "But did you ever think he just needed a little time? Maybe he could get past it? I'll let you see him, on one condition... You have to spend one night in the room with him."

"Why should that matter?" Quinn asked without glancing away from Tyros. "But for the record... When the kett captured me, they tried to change me too... but here I am, still a human/quarian mongrel." She added with a playful smirk.

Maggie sighed softly.  "Then you'll take me to Tann? So I can make sure he'll stay safe?" She asked hopefully. 

"It sounds hot to me."  Tyros said with a smile. "Where shall we call home?"

"Yeah... sure." Ryder replied, turning her face slightly to hide to smirk that betrayed the fact she had no intention of letting Tann anywhere near Maggie.

"Well, I must admit i'm curious why you chose this planet to call home?" she asked, finally turning her full attention to her father. "Was it choice, or circumstance?"

"Just dont tell him i was there. " Maggie said, truly thinking Kandros was going to rest through the night. 
She doctored his wounds and sat by him, pressing a kiss to his head. It was a lot like the first time they'd met.

"Choice actually. No one bothers me here and I don't mind the cold as much the others." Qim explained. "People don't bother me here as they did on other worlds. Once they know you have a talent they never let you free."

"Leave..." Kandros breathed when he felt familiar lips tough his head, though his swollen eyes remained closed. "You don't love me, remember?"

"Who was it?" Quinn asked, sitting in front of her father at the table where he had been playing cards. "Who wanted to use you?"

Maggie didn't answer. She simply got up and headed for the door. When she found it locked she rested her head against it. How could she have fallen for that one? 
"You did a stupid thing today, Tiran Kandros. You should have fought back." She said after a long moment.

"Your step father. He bought me as a slave to pay off my debt." Qim told reshuffling the deck and dealing her in. Tyros sat nearby, listening quietly.

"What for?" Kandros breathed, feeling like every bone in his body had been broken several times over. "Tell me, Maggie, what exactly did I had to fight for?"

Quinn was frowning in confusion when Qim told her this. "I don't understand... Is that how you ended up on the expedition? He isn't here now, how can you still worry he might find you?"

"I knew Ryder was wrong. She said you took a beating to keep Tann from getting at me.  You did it because you were giving up." Maggie said softly, lowering herself to the end of his bed. "It's a good thing you didn't decide to do something so dumb. I'm going back to him tomorrow."

"I told you how I came to be on the expedition. I came looking for you, your sister and your mother. I managed to been away from your father and I followed the three of you here but..." He paused, looking over his cards. "Queen of hearts. I win this hand."

Kandros snorted in reply to that. "Yeah, I look forward to living in a strange galaxy knowing the only woman I ever loved is willingly spending her life with a man I hate with every fibre of my being." Clearly Kandros was still rather wounded by the things Maggie had said when she broke off their relationship.

"Which begs the question... Why was Mom on the expedition without him?" Quinn replied, sliding her cards back across the table to be shuffled back into the deck.