Love and War

First topic message reminder :

"Maggie, you were attacked." Kandros replied firmly, though he still didn't open his eyes. "I never hated you, only what that bastard did to you."

"Brave? That woman?" Quinn snorted. "I hardly think so. She was a brainless idiot who only cared what would make her dear husband happy."

"Loralie is my grandson's betrothed." Reegar said as if the turian were extremely stupid. ''If anything happens to her. I think you get the idea. When the day is over take some time for yourself like the good days. Madame Rachel has all your favorites set up for you. It's the least I can do."

"Are you going to finish me off or what?" Tyros hissed after a long moment. "I have things of concern to deal with."

Brutus was not impressed with any of this information. "You're forcing marriage on him?" He asked thinly, though didn't tell Reegar he had no intention of visiting Rachel.

"Of course you do." Quinn replied, though she touched a finger to the communicator in her ear. "Light it up boys." She breathed, and a moment later the ship Tyros had used to get here exploded in a flash of orange. "Give mother my best, when you eventually limp home in this trash can." She added, backing away from Tyros and giving him an exaggerated salute.

"We are quarians. It's what we do." Reegar snorted. "I was under the impression turians did it too. At one time your father did the same for your brother Garrus until he ran off with that disgusting commander Sheppard."

"She asked me to kill you." Tyros said softly, watching his ship burn. "I still love you. I can't do it..."

"Yeah... he sure did." Brutus replied with an almost dopey grin, thinking about how mad their father was when that happened. "Golden boy ain't so golden now."

"You assumed the worst of me and ran." Quinn replied, keeping a distance now. "That isn't love... I don't think they even have a word outside ancient literature for what you did by running off with my mother."

"And how would he feel if he knew you'd shacked up with the Generals daughter? One that never even made it into the military? Human no less. You'd shame him more than brother ever could." Reegar said, watching Brutus' face. 

Tyros said nothing, his face expressionless. There was nothing to say. She saw herself as blameless. There was nothing left. He sighed and turned to the escape pod, not surprised to find them disabled.

"He died over half a millennia ago, does it matter?" Brutus asked with a snort. "Lori is more than someone like me deserves, but that doesn't mean Jill be letting her go. I don't. Are of you force your grandson to marry, I don't even care who the girl is. I only thought it was the sort of thing I was supposed to care about. Turns out I don't."

Quinn was staring hard at Tyros' back, finally understanding that he had never understood the price she had paid so many times over, all to keep him safe. A knife sailed past the drell assassin's head and planted firmly in the controls of the escape pod. It was the same one she had slid into his ribs before usurping it to make her escape from the nexus. This was their final goodbye, so she thought. He could use it to kill her the moment her back was turned, or simply limp home in the ship she had used to lure him here in the first place.

"Watch yourself." Reegar warned. "You have very little control over the pet you brought with you into my ship. "She is such a lovely little flower. It's been a while since I've had a taste of human."

Tyros didn't turn around. All he wanted to do at that point was get back to the ship that held his unborn child. He'd shut off the rest of the galaxy. Nothing else mattered.

"One taste would probably kill you, rat king." Brutus sneered. "Even if it didn't, you don't have the stamina for a woman like Lori." He added proudly. 
As the two adults were growling threats at each other, Connor's betrothed had inched a little closer. "Can't you stop them?" She asked, her voice a gentle whisper.

When she didn't feel the blade in her back, Quinn returned to her own ship. Her floating fortress that kept the outside world away. Every ship she had attacked, she had given the crew the choice of joining her, or accepting death. It had meant Quinn had a sizeable crew and fleet of her own now. Inside these cold metal walls, she was most vulnerable. Behind the locked door of her cabin, Quinn often sobbed until she could no longer draw breath.

Connor paid her little attention. His grandmother had told him to avoid females. She had said said that they were like his mother and only wanted to hurt him in the end. He simply shrugged. "This is pretty take for them. Just wait until the real name calling starts."

"Are you all right, Captain?" Her second in command knocked on the door to her room, his voice extremely soft and worried. The turian named Wart leaned against the outer door "I can wait as long as I need to for an answer, ma'am."

"Are all turians like this?" The young quarian asked, clearly quite nervous to be talking to Connor almost alone like this.

"Beat it!" Was Quinn's curt response, the door not opening. There was a rather long pause, then Quinn spoke again. "I'm fine, not that's it's any of your damn business!"

Connor nodded. "Every one that I've met any way. Brutus is the worst of them. Especially to my grandfather. Not that grandfather is better." He motioned toward where Lori was walking in and grinned. "Watch this. Brutus will change. He will not be the same person."

Amus Vakarian opened the door without Quinn's permission. "I don't know why you insisted on putting yourself through that, Captain. You knew how it was going to turn out. What is so special about that drell?"

Sent from Topic'it App

Connor was correct. The second he saw Lori, Brutus' entire demeanour changed and Reegar was all but invisible. "Lori..." He breathed her name with a gentle smile, despite knowing he was being watched.
"What's wrong? Is he sick?" The girl asked Connor in a hushed whisper.

"I told you to leave it alone!" Quinn shouted, a glass shattering against the wall beside Amus' head from where it had been launched in the dimly lit room.

Lori moved across the space to Reegar and handed him a report. She knew better than to let her eyes linger on her turian lover. "Good." The quarian purred. "Connor, my boy come here. There is something I need you to do while on shore leave." 
Connor got up from where he sat beside Loralie and went to the old man. The elder man simply touched his shoulder and he jerked hard. Then Reegar was shoving the file at him. "Kee'lah salia, boy." The elder muttered.

Amus could barely see Quinn in the darkness. "If it makes you feel any better we have the kett tech you we looking for. Our team has deciphered messages from other ships. They are not happy with Betty. They are organizing to get rid of her."

Brutus missed the interaction between Reegar and Connor, as he was watching Lori, discrete fingers touching her elbow gently as he tried to silently as if she was okay.

"It won't matter." Quinn replied, though nothing further was thrown at Amus. "She has her drell. He would die for her and their unborn child." Amus wouldn't need to see Quinn to know how badly this last encounter had affected her.

Lori had seen the interaction and something about it scared her. The General called it using trigger words. It made her wonder if Reegar had a trigger word for Brutus as well. 

Amus crossed the room and knelt before Quinn, daring to brush the hair out of her face. "You don't need him either of them. It's all right. How can I make this better for you?"

"I have to leave soon." Brutus told Lori quietly. "Promise me you will send word if he even raises his voice to you?"

Quinn's inhuman fingers snapped out and caught Amus' wrist in a crushing grip. "You can start by not touching me." She hissed. Revent events had hardened Quinn even further to people. She had foolishly trusted Ardwin, thinking he wanted Betty dead as much as she did. It wouldn't happen again. She treated every member of this crew as utterly expendable.

Lori nodded slowly, "Bring me back a book." She said softly, looking rather sad. 
"You will bring her nothing. She hasn't earned it." Reegar snapped. 

"Forgive me, Captain..." Amus whispered. "I was just...just trying to help..." he added, trying yank his wrist back.

"Yes, sir." Brutus replied, though her gave Lori a quick wink that said otherwise.

"Well don't. I don't need your help." Quinn replied, though her eyes were staring off past Amus' should as she spoke. "Is the tracker we put on the crippled ship the drell took online?" She asked after a moment, finally releasing his wrist.

Connor walked past Loralie without ever answering her question. He seemed strange, no longer the curious boy he'd been. He even ignored several calls from his grandmother that day. It was late in the night when he found Kandros at the bar and sat beside him, a dagger in his fingers. "Hello, father."

"It is." Amus confirmed. "Odd part is, it headed to Eos and arrived there earlier. I suppose he'll try for repairs?"

"I ain't no ones father." Androstenedione slurred without even turning around. Since losing his beloved Maggie, Kandros did little besides get drunk.

"Weasley little bastard." Quinn growled, not liking this information at all. She liked it even less that he was going to the very place she had betrayed, all to gain his freedom. "Suit up. Looks like he can't take the hint."

Connor closed his eyes, remembering how much it had hurt when his own father hadn't come to his rescue. He'd screamed for him and the elder man never came. Now he knew why. He didn't even want his son. The young man had never been so hurt. His fingers curled tighter around the blade he held. The voices were silent. They weren't telling him to see what color the blood was. They weren't saying anything at all. 

"Yes ma'am." Amus said, getting to his feet and holding out a hand instinctively to help her to hers.

Kandros downed some more of his drink, still not turning around. He had failed everyone. Every time he tried to be the good guy, he only made things worse. His family were gone, and it seemed this battery acid they were calling alcohol was failing to kill him as he hoped.

 Score she could stop herself, Quinn had accepted the hand and allowed Amus to pull her up to her feet rather unsteadily.

"I'm sorry...the voices...they aren't the ones...and Brutus doesn't know I'm here. He thinks I'm sleeping he warned me not to see you but...i have my orders." Connor whispered. "You never loved me. I can justify this. Mother will forgive me when I see her again. I know she will." The young man got to his feet with a rasping gasp. He hadn't worn his mask. He didn't want people to laugh at him. "Goodbye, Kandros. May you find rest with your spirits."

When Quinn swayed Amus caught her in his arms and held her close. "Sorry, captain...i know you said no touching..." he said sheepishly.

Kandros smiled when he heard the whispered words, he even took the time to take one more drink. "Maggie forgave anything." He breathed before he turned around.

"You're damn right I did!" Quinn huffed, quick to push herself out of Amus' arms. "I'll start taking fingers for each time you forget that." She growled as she picked up her helmet from where it was on the nightstand by her soft bed.

Connor slammed the knife into his father's mid-section, turning himself off. The voices were whispering comfort. He could even hear his mother singing to him. The bar around them erupted into screams but he only kept stabbing. He hated his father for letting him die. He deserved this. He hoped it was agonizing. 
He began to scream. He didn't even recognize the sounds he was making as he followed his victim to the floor.

Amus and Quinn arrived just as the bar emptied. Most of the patrons were covered in blood and looking shell shocked.  Above them, a drell crossed the roof top trying to enter another way

Kandros didn't fight back, he only placed a hand on his son's shoulder so the younger man wouldn't have to hold all the weight. He had turned to face Connor when he knew who he was, also not wanting the boy to carry the shame of stabbing someone in the back. "Thank you." He was smiling even as his son continued to stab the blade into a now lifeless corpse.

Quinn glanced around the room, though didn't yet remove her helmet. When she saw Connor and Kandros she crossed the space with a smile no one would see. "Can't say he didn't deserve it." She remarked with a snort.

Connor dropped the knife when he realized his father was dead and buried his face in his bloody hands. He began to sob openly,  his shoulders shaking. "I...Kee'lah...that's what he said. I didn't want to. He...but then...he pretended not to know me...I'm a monster..." He was gasping now as he laid his face on his father's life less chest.

Quinn was stood watching the boy, not really feeling much of anything, unlike everyone else who looked on in horror. "Bastard deserved worse." She told the sobbing boy simply. "Get over it, kid. Parents aren't the gods they like their offspring to think."

"Grandmother said that too...oh god...grandmother...i...i have to call her. I can't go back there." Connor got to his feet, unsteady. "Brutus...excuse me...i have to get my teacher..." 
Tyros dropped in front of him before he could get to the door. "Betty sent me, Connor. We need to leave now."

Quinn caught Connor's wrist and spun him behind her. "Too slow, old man. The kid is mine now." She sneered. It was easier to hate Tyros when she was hidden within her armour.