Love and War

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"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."

"you were passed out at your terminal. You were sick. If I hadn't directed my crew to collect you and heal you, you would have died right there. The turian and drell would not have been equipped to save you." Reegar said matter of factly. "That's all right. No thank you needed." He muttered, turning her toward the console. "Fix it. You broke it."

"I don't want you to leave but...it's best for you...you have to know Betty won't hurt me." Lori said softly.

"I'm not thanking you for doing something I never asked for." Quinn shot back sharply. "And I'll fix your ship when you tell me where mine are." She added, folding her arms across her chest as she glared up at Reegar.

"Then you should know I don't give a Varrens ass what happens to me." Brutus replied with a shrug, though it caused him to wince in pain.

"after what you did to my ship? Are you kidding?" Reegar snorted. "You are not running this show." He added, almost nose to nose with her.

Lori gave a heavy sigh as she dropped onto the bed beside her lover. "You are as stubborn as a bull, you know that?" She groaned. "I'm trying to save you here. I seriously give up."

"Then I guess your ship will just have to hang here. Crippled. Until someone else finds it." Quinn replied, her lavender eye betraying nothing. She almost smirked, wanting to tell the quatrain captain that she could just sneeze in his uncovered face and wait a few hours. 

"Save me for what?" Brutus snorted, a large arm sliding around Lori and holding her gently against him. "Rather be dead, than out there without you. Princess."

Reegar's white eyes flashed a warning as he leaned in close to her. "What if I were lying about what happened the drell? What if you don't fix my ship and he is the one to suffer?" 

Lori closed her eyes, feeling like she were being stretched like a rubber band. She didn't know how to make things right. And it certainly didn't help when her nind kept reminding her that the man she loved had gone to Betty. She found herself inadequate and ugly compared to her mother. She always had. The truth of it all did nothing to help.

"Again, you seem to think I care." Quinn replied coolly. "I've slid a blade between his ribs at least once myself. Trust me, it doesn't help." She added with a smile that betrayed her pain, even if her eyes didn't.

The silence between them was almost unbearable for Brutus. When he could stand it no longer, he wearily pushed himself to his feet. "Lori... please don't treat me like a fool. If you want me gone, admit it. Don't hide it behind sugar coated words of wellbeing."

"He had such pretty words for me. Please, let my wife go." Reegar said as he stepped away from her. He was pulling open drawers to reveal tools as he moved further away. "He promised me servetude. A personal assassin. Who wouldn't want that? Those who are trained to turn themselves off like him are highly prized. He would fetch an even higher price at the slavers market you know..."


Lori took off her glasses and set them aside, trying hard to look at her awkwardly short legs. Silently she compared them to the thin svelte ones her mother possessed and she felt nothing but shame. She was short and round like her father. There was even a slight pudge to her stomach. The General had certainly not been married for his looks. 
Betty was thinking and mysteriously beautiful. There was certainly no pudge to her. Not even her hair dared to fall out of place. It was no wonder men paid to be with her. Brutus included. 
Quietly she pulled her legs up to her chin, forgetting she was supposed to answer. Her mother was a goddess. She was a toadstool. She should have been the one fall down the stairs that day, not the other way around. All she did was poison people. What good was she?

"I'm sure his wife would be thrilled with such devotion." Quinn replied with a bitter snort as she rolled her eyes. "I fail to see what any of this has to do with me. Or why some suitless quarian give a rats ass."

Lori's silence was rather painful for Brutus to bear, until he watched her hug her knees up to her chest. Though it caused him pain, he crouched down next to the bed, eye level with his lover. "You are beautiful. She is ugly. She is a monster inside and out."

"then he's not yours?" Reegar asked, opening the comlink on his omni tool. "Kill the drell." He muttered. "He's wasting my resources."

"Betty is a goddess. Men...you... Drool at the sight of her. You paid to be with her. It's always been that way. Even death couldn't steal her loveliness. 
"Look at me. It's no wonder Maggie and Quinn wouldn't have anything to do with me. They were beautiful like her. And... I...god, Bull...now that I know you've been with her...i...know I can't even begin to compare. I can't even try..." Lori breathed, her nose as red as the rims of her eyes.

"I thought you wanted an assassin to call your own?" Quinn asked coolly, trying not to sound to interested in what he had just said. "You could always have him kill me for crippling your ship." She added.

Lori's tears were tearing at Brutus, making him feel the kind of pain Betty herself could never have inflicted. "Betty is a whore. I paid her because I had an itch, that was all. And your sisters... they're nothing special. One is dead, and the other is more machine than woman. How is that beautiful?" He added, reaching up and brushing gently at her tears. "I don't care about anything happening outside of this room." That said, he reached up, kissing Lori before she could protest.

"There are other drell." Reegar said, closing the link. "In fact, a merc named Ardwin is offering a female one in trade for a ship. I was thinking of offering the remains of yours for her. Thoughts?" He purred, the lights flickering back on in the bridge. 

Connor sighed dramatically and held out a credit chip to Betty. "You were right. He told her she was a goddess." He muttered, pushing back from the monitors. "Now he's showing her how much more beautiful she is than you." He shook his head and groaned. "You were right, grandmother. That love thing is for the weak. Aren't you worried it will get Lori killed one day?"

Quinn's eyes were narrowed hatefully at Reegar when he suggested this. She had been betrayed by so many people that revenge and anger were simply who she was now. "Go ahead, kill him if you want a pissed off kett on your hands." She told him thinly. "If you think I did all this to myself, you're even dumber than you look." She added, motioning to her implants.

Betty was watching the monitor as Brutus removed Lori's clothing to kiss each bare patch of skin he came across. "But to protect her, I would have to change her, and I won't do that to my sparrow." She found herself confessing to her grandson. "I let your mother love, and look what happened to her. I took away Quinn's ability to trust, therefore her ability to love, and she is very much alive." It was quite clear that Lori was the favourite of all Betty's daughters. "Doing what I did to Quinn was easy, but I could never do that to Lori. I could never do it... because she would forgive me for it."

"a pissed off kett?" Reegar stopped what he was doing and looked back at Quinn, his white eyes, sparkling. "Why would they be angry that I killed a silly little drell?" He purred, his fingers hovering over his omni tool. 

"But she would never be alone. Like us. Wouldn't that be a good thing?" Connor asked.

Quinn's expression was stoney, giving nothing away this time. "You think that kind of information is free? For all you know that kett is already on board your ship while I had it powered down..."

"Aren't we?" Betty asked almost sadly. "You say that now, child, but there will come a time when even you will leave me in the name of young love."

Reegar shook his head, his fingers moving away from his omni tool. "I'm not afraid of kett. There is nothing they can do to me." 

"I promised you I never never would and so I won't." Connor said with a smile at his grandmother. "Besides, love makes a person weak. You said so yourself."

"Not they. Her." Quinn corrected simply. "If you're not worried, you even dumber than you look." She added, still showing no sign of helping Reegar restore his ship. She was proving to be far pricklier than he had most likely anticipated when he had his crew rescue her.

 Betty smiled and patted Connor's head. "None of us can deny biology when the time comes." She assured her grandson.

"Her?" Reegar asked, watching as his crew began to man their posts without being ordered to. "I'm not sure I know what you mean." 

"Did you love the General?" Connor asked quietly. "Reegar told me he loved you."

"Of course you don't. You're a worthless boshtet who knows nothing." Quinn replied with a snort. "That Darell you claim you have, he's the lover of a powerful kett female. She doesn't like to lose things she owns."

Betty was strangely quiet for some moments as she thought about it. "No." She finally breathed. "It's was a marriage of convenience. I love Lori, but not her father... It was Quinn and Maggie's father who I did love."

"How interesting." Reegar's fingers slid over his omni tool, directing whoever was on the other end to spare the drell for the time being. "Tell me more about this kett, my dear." He asked softly, gently reaching out to touch her shoulder. "Quinn...you must forgive me for being so gruff. It's the only way I know how to get anything done. Please...show me how to be kind..." Reegar shocked himself with his words and the fact that he actually meant what he said in that moment.

Lori sat beside her mother later that evening, the silence between them deafening. "If you're going to keep us here we have to be useful." She said finally. "Not that I have a use..."

Reegar would be plain out of luck. Quinn didn't know kind any more than he did. Her whole life had been one trial after another while her sisters lived a rather charmed life. The only kindness she had known... was the limited time she had spent with her quarian father and... Tyros. The young woman snorted at her own melancholy memories and shrugged Reegar's hand away. "Kindness is weakness." She informed him, a hardness in her lavender eye that was all a front. Quinn craved kindness just as much as he seemed to.

"Sparrow... why must you always put yourself down like that?" Betty asked, seeming so different to the woman who had once maimed and tortured her youngest daughter. "You are everything that is precious to me, despite what your father may tell you."