[Citadel - Metroplaza Apartment Complex] The Emperor's New Guest

Soft classical music floated through the air of a colorfully decorated room with cloudy walls and silly paintings. In the center of the room, right under a large mobile, a crib projected holograms against the ceiling, portraying simple colors and shapes for a stirring infant. The door opened, and the boy's mother entered to pull him into her arms- Lieutenant Sarah Thompson, recently divorced; recently lots of things. The blonde woman carried the boy off into the living room, setting him down gently on a pillowed mat on a couch cushion. "Okay.. What do you need.. You don't need a new diaper.." She pushed a few fingers through her boyish hair in thought.

In a moment, she left and returned with a bottle, holding the nipple into the boy's mouth. The wall screen was turned on, blaring more news live from Sur'Kesh. Sarah leaned back, crossing a leg over her knee. "Okay, we're going to have guests. Be cool, it's a friend of mine. An Asari! You're going to be meeting an Asari! Don't be racist." She glanced down at her son's innocent expression. "Why am I expecting responses?" She stared out for a moment. "Maybe I am crazy.."

Daia shuffled the package to her other arm and placed her omni-tool against the door, triggering the 'ID confirmed' tag the doorman downstairs had uploaded to her. It took only a moment for Sarah to open the door, revealing the asari, and beside her Ana.

"Fair met!" Daia exclaimed, greeting the woman enthusiastically; the prospect of meeting Sarah's son for the first time obviously had her excited; her gleeful-childlike expression sabotages what would have otherwise been an uncharacteristically businesslike look for her, long skirt suit and all. The diminutive quarian was smartly dressed as always, and her visor set to its usual complete opaqueness. "Sarah, Ana'Therion, my bondmate - actually you were both at the drell temple that time, when Eafina was charging about looking at historic carvings, did you get a chance to meet?"

"Your music was memorable," Ana offered, pleasantly, though obviously the more level-headed of the couple at the moment. "Hello Sarah. I hope you don't mind. Daia suggested I come along, and since the alternative was finding out how lacklustre the hotel's HV channel selection was, eheh..." Daia gave her a smile and gently squeezed the hand in hers, then turned her attention back to their host.

"It's good to see you again," she said earnestly. "And this is Albert Viros! Greetings, little Emperor!" She laughed lightly, then presented Sarah with the hastily-wrapped gift she had been carrying, about the size of a pillow, which on opening proved to be a plush asari doll.

"I saw your post, just as I was on the way over," she explained. "Re: the half-size Calyn, you were saying you didn't have other species? So we made a quick stop at We B Play. She's Matriarch Varella - you'll find plenty on the extranet about her, she was the most honoured diplomat of her age, advisor to the Three Matrons of Serrice during the golden age of the sailing guilds."

"I'll have to IOU on the quarian equivalent," Ana added. "Toy shops don't seem to stock much of us."

Sarah approached and gave the two a quick pat on the arm with her free hand, a warm smile forming on the woman's tired face. "Hello! It's good to see you both! I wasn't aware that Ana was on the way, I don't mind at all. I have food in the kitchen but I'm afraid I don't own a purifier."

She bit her lower lip, then noticed the package as it was handed over. "I do definitely remember Ana- How could I forget? I turned to you for psychological help a few months ago before the war was over. I know you were on hiatus at the time, but my ..situation.. has 'changed'- slightly." She wiggled an empty ring finger, as she turned to carry the baby and the package to her coffee table in the living room.

Sarah's house was nice- But lacking of the view of her old one. An overlook of a large human neighborhood was below the window, blocking the zip and zoom of the skycars she was used to. "I remember playing there and I appreciate your compliment, but ..I've unfortunately had a lot on my plate. I don't think I met Eafina- Was it Eafina? The other Asari? Anyway.." She approached Daia, offering the infant over.

"Be careful, his brutal judgement is swift and comes without warning. He has already nineteen people working for him and it's nap-time in fourty minutes."

The baby had vapor-thin blonde hair and sharp blue eyes complete with a sour expression.

"Before I headed off to the flotilla," Ana reminded Daia quietly; the asari looked appropriately sheepish at the slip of memory. "Um, sorry about how... things turned out, in that regard," Ana added to Sarah. "Thank you for the offer, but I've eaten already."

"Eafina, yes," Daia nodded. "Our boss at the agency." Her eyes lit up when Sarah offered the baby, and she beamed a smile at her.

"Am I holding him right?" she asked nervously, cradling the infant. She smiled down at him, while Ana, obviously picking up on what was happening, put a fond hand on her shoulder.

"Greetings, Albert," she said, her voice more melodious than even its usual accent. "Nineteen underlings already, is that right? You have been busy!" She lifted her gaze momentarily to Sarah, long enough to note "He's beautiful," before looking back down, gazing into the baby's eyes.

"Without warning is good," Ana noted, her voice amused. "That's one of your basic rookie dictator mistakes, telegraphing your retribution."

"I swear, if I keep calling him 'Emperor' he's going to have a complex or something." She reached over, taking the infant from Daia and hugging him to her shoulder. She gave a tilt of the head towards the furniture- Very comfortable looking leather couches and a few similar-looking chairs. A coffee table complete with a relatively fresh bouquet of flowers inside of a vase, sitting on top of a folded note. "Have a seat if you'd like." She stepped over across from the table, taking a sit in one of the chairs.

"The two of us have plotted it all out. No one would suspect or point the finger at a baby for overthrowing a world government, and I can use the 'innocent mother' card." She strained with a forced grin. "I- ..God, that joke sucked. I'm off my game- I've really not been doing so hot lately, you'll have to forgive me, I also had to sack my material writer for that gigantic elcor in there."

She jabbed a finger back to the crib-room. "I'm not too thrilled about developments lately. The flowers are from someone my sister-in-law is trying to hook me up with despite a few obstacles, and Chris is going into appeals court for early release. I'm not exactly sure what that will do for buddy here-" She gave the baby a peck on the temple. "But she'll have to perform an act of God to get me to forgive her. I am happy with moving on. Fuck her. She -" The woman's voice strained. "I - .. I'm sorry."

"You should hear this one," Ana said, tilting her head at Daia as they sat down. "Keelah. She'll take a joke and run and run and run..."

"I've got the elcor in my office," Daia added, glancing through the doorway at the pint-sized (relatively) Calyn.

"Ancestors know how anyone takes you seriously," Ana chided her.

"He adds an air of gravitas."

"Gravity, the size of the thing." Daia couldn't suppress a chuckle.

Daia leant forward when Sarah apologised for airing her frustration, looking sympathetic; Ana's visor forebade any expression on her part, but her body language remained open.

"People who start shouting because their kaffe order is wrong have to say 'sorry'," Daia offered. "With all you've been through... I don't think anyone will blame you for her being a sore nerve, to say the least." She glanced at Albert, and grinned faintly. "It'll be a while before he can start picking up language anyway, might as well get it out now before you have to watch yourself."

"So- You two have been doing well, I hope?" The woman shifted the baby to her other arm, allowing him to rest slightly on her forearm against her chest. "You're both intelligent women, what would you do in my current situation? Drink myself to death isn't an option until he starts going bottle-only, and that's not for a while." She flattened her extremely old and worn Space Bees tee across her stomach.

"Anna- My sister-in-law- Put me on like, five different dating websites and I've been dealing with women and men sending more messages than you can imagine. I've ran out of ways to politely say 'No', so I've switched to regular expletives and mild threats. The flowers, however, bring the room together, Jim was nice for that." She pointed at the red and yellow blossoms.

"I know that I bitch and moan constantly at you, Daia, but you're like, one of a handful of friends that I have. I tried opening up to L'uomo Universale, and that fucker called me a traitor. I am -" She added weight to her voice- "not a fucking traitor to anyone but Cerberus. I sold them out and I'll do it ten more times. Do you know what they did to me? What they forced me to do?"

The woman broke down in tears. "They took my family, they took my father, mother, brother and my in-laws, and I'm worried that they took my hand or implanted me with shit /constantly/- You know that bone scans of my arm-" She hoisted her arm- "Show that a large fraction of the bone tissue is synthetic to the elbow, including the vast majority of my hand? I've never told anyone about this. The papers I read said early-stage Phantom implants but I -" She pulled a sleeve to wipe her eyes.

"I'm a section-8 waiting to happen. This is why I was stoned out of my head most of the time before I joined the military again. I can't relax. I can't think straight and it just eats my mind."

Daia's eyes instantly went to Ana when tears welled up in Sarah's; the quarian seemed to know the question she was wordlessly asking with them, even without being able to see it, and gave her a quick nod and a little push with her hand. A moment later Daia was at the side of Sarah's chair, with a tentative hand on her shoulder, trying not to seem to invade her space, but offering her support.

"Is there somewhere you could look to, for support?" she asked, after giving the woman a moment. "Something in the Alliance...?"

"Or elsewhere," Ana put in. "If counselling within your military isn't an appealing option, it may mean it's time for a change in perspective. Uh, not the 'pack up and move to another planet' kind of change," she added quickly, with a weak chuckle. "But if you've tried therapy and run into diminishing returns, sometimes it's the therapist, not the therapy, that's not working."

"We're all products of our upbringing, culture," Daia offered. "Someone from an entirely different background... I don't know if you remember, but I think I once said if I were in your position, I'd seek counsel from a Matriarch. Maybe someone close to that - an asari-trained counsellor - might help. Worth a thought, at least."

"A new therapist- No, no, I need to see my therapist. I've been -" She rocked forward slightly. "I haven't left the house since last Friday-" She checked her omnitool and hissed under her breath. "I have my reasons." She seemed to relax from her stiff posture and gently rocked the baby in her arms. "I suppose I could try to meet the neighbors. Try to meet new people, go back to therapy. Maybe try yoga?"

She glanced back to the Asari. "My current perspective is that fate is a bitch. I know I'm probably going to have it rough for a decade or so-" She gestured off and waved her arm- "But my son's going to have the best life I can give him. Chris can pull him from my cold dead hands, I don't care how much money she has, she made a fucking idiot mistake and her family paid for it."

She took a deep breath and sighed. "I know he's not going to remember any of this, but if you'd excuse me?" She slowly stood up, carrying the baby off to the nursery. The door was closed- And a few moments later, she returned, resuming her seat with a deadpan expression and bloodshot eyes. "You know what? I want to forgive her, but I just can't." She shook her head. "Not for a while. Besides, how stupid would I look if I let her back into my life after what's happened?"

When Sarah returned Daia was back beside Ana, leaning forward, with the quarian idly rubbing her back with one hand. She gave their host a smile when she saw her, though, defusing any sense that she may have become ill-at-ease.

"It's a human saying, isn't it - forgive but not forget?" Daia asked. "I... honestly, I believe forgiveness is what makes life... work," she settled on, after a moment searching for the right word. "We all get hurt, or upset or frustrated or angry or what-have-you, by others sooner or later. In the end, I think letting it go is the only real 'defence'. It's the only solution that lasts. Ideally," she admitted, at the last.

"She loves her ideals," Ana noted wryly, with a fond pat on Daia's shoulder. "As ideals go though," she added, turning her visor to Sarah, "you could find worse ones. What was it though, 'not forget'? That's the ancestors' own truth." Daia nodded in turn.

"What happened with you and Chris," she went on, "that's not going to fade fast - or, perhaps, not ever fade entirely. Maybe one day, you'll reach a point where it's faded enough to put the anger aside, I'd like to hope so. But she chose to do what she did, and for whatever reasons she had, she did it. Keeping her out of Albert's life," she looked unhappy, but gave a little shrug, and met Sarah's gaze levelly, without doubt, "forgiveness - when you reach that point - still doesn't mean reversing that."

"Forgive her, don't fully let her back into my life, let her see Albert once in a while, right?" She crossed her arms across her chest and leaned forward, visibly uncomfortable. "I- Maybe. I don't know. I can't love her like I did after all that's happened. I've done a lot of self-searching to be able to say that and to be able to let her go so easily. It wasn't easy- I -" She spoke at a softer tone, her blue eyes looking at the long, soft ultramarine carpet on the living room floor. "I agreed to give her another chance. Taleeze was there- We were at another meetup just a few months ago."

"The two of us spoke for the first time in a while. I agreed to go to a therapist with her- But ... I .. I guess I just thought about it. I thought about how she never went to the police, how she never even alerted the officials until after I was rescued. She didn't care- Or she was afraid- And well, the police asked her to come in and they arrested her. I feel awful about all of this. I know she does too, but -"

She rubbed her face. "Am I really in the wrong, here? I'm sorry if my outburst made me seem really crazy. I'm really only sort of crazy."

"It's a sort-of-crazy galaxy," Ana said; Daia couldn't help a chuckle.

"Do you feel in the wrong?" she asked gently. "I know how everything ended up didn't feel good, but... I don't know, I'm just having a guess, but you don't seem - not really - like you feel you made the wrong choice, when you had to. Just that the choice is difficult to accept. If admitting her to your life - in whatever capacity," she ventured, "- is a possibility, exploring that in a controlled setting with a therapist could be very valuable."

"It's going to be rough as hell for you to truly satisfy yourself on a course of action on your own," Ana noted. "In a bad situation, even a necessary one, it's difficult not to imagine the alternative might've been better. Confronting an issue head-on - at the very least, it cuts down on the variables."

The woman slipped her feet off of the floor and hugged her knees. "Do I feel I was in the wrong? No one - " she spoke with pain in her tone- "No one wants to put a loved one behind bars. I miss the smell of her cooking, her being there with my night terrors, I.." She glanced off. "I think when she gets out we're going to have to visit a therapist, yeah. You think we can get back on speaking terms? The Asari Embassies have - well, they asked me to clear her as part of a security assessment, as she catered a few of their events." The woman washed her face with her hands.

"I refused out of spite, and I think she was locked out for a year. Now I've got buyers talking to me and the Turian co-owner about buying where the restaurant was. She's got just as many rights to be mad at me as I am for her. I have not been wholly innocent . It was a messy divorce.", and she saw jail time. I can't believe all of this has happened. I feel awful every way I can."

"Even so, it's... understandable you'd have reservations," Daia said, a little awkwardly. "Vouching for her in a security matter, after what happened. In your position..." She shrugged. "Who can know. I suppose I'd say, don't be too critical of yourself over things like that. Neither of you would be coming into therapy with especially clear heads, not after all this."

"Speaking terms is probably your ideal outcome, at least for the foreseeable future," Ana offered. "If you ultimately decide she's out of your life, it'd do you less harm to do it with a clear head, rather than in anger."

"They are pretty flowers," Daia said in the moment that followed. "I can imagine the offers would be unwelcome - five sites, really? Still... Having positives to devote yourself to, more concrete ones - like Albert, and even everyday distractions like this, yoga, did you say? It'll all help." She offered a hopeful smile, then looked slightly baffled. "It's a kind of exercise, isn't it? Not a food?"

"Yeah. It's like an exercise, both holding poses, breathing regiments and testing your endurance and flexibility. I've bought a starter video, I just haven't started it." She took a breath. "I'm sorry I've opened up so much today, girls. I've had a lot on my mind and not a great deal of people I could open up to."

She slowly rose, walking to the rear of the room towards the kitchen. She'd open the fridge and pour herself a glass of green tea, mixing in some ice. Returning to her seat, she took a sip and continued. "How- Uh. How are you two doing? Ana, it has been far too long since we've conversed on the site, and I know you're both so busy that you make /my/ schedule look like I'm a collegiate on break."

"I know you're taking time out of said schedule now to visit, and I appreciate it, so much so that I actually have a present for you both- Something I saw at a market. Let me find it." An apologetic smile. "Two seconds." She set her tea down and stepped off quickly- And returned with a package that she placed before the two. She continued to drink her tea. "A vase- Looked like you two would enjoy it, it was made by an artist from Russia, really pretty blue and green coloration. I think you could store flowers or wine bottles in it, it's really up to you."

"There are times," Ana said, sounding amused at herself, "that I find myself missing the mad little place. But as you say, busy. Daia keeps me up to date with the latest... however you'd describe what goes on there."

"It's no trouble coming by," Daia assured Sarah. "Sirta's schedule didn't have an opening closer to our arrival anyway - and besides, it's not the greatest idea, getting off a relay liner and going straight to business, it's good to have a break. We're meeting them later, about possibly getting our medical monitor software package listed in the third-party section of Sirta sales points. It'd be a tiny thing from their point of view, but for us, anything involving someone as big as Sirta... well," she chuckled, "I guess it's just as well I kept turning up to all those Sirta charity balls during Bliss every year, somebody remembered me."

Daia beamed with gratitude at the gift; Ana's expression was naturally hidden, but she gently touched the package, holding it steady as Daia undid some of the wrapping.

"It's beautiful," she said. "You didn't have to- But thank you, truly."

"Sirta is a gigantic opportunity. Congratulations with getting involved with them, who knows? May get some product placement or dare I say ..." She feigned a gasp. "A commercial opportunity..?!" She crossed her legs and sat Indian-style. "Could have throwing around money, and I mean Bekenstein money. Once saw a lady at a gala there wearing a diamond ring the size of your thumbnail. " she mimicked the size with her fingers.

"I normally don't dress gaudy, but I've got something planned for the charity gala. Got a gold and silver strappy number in my closet, I thought it would be appropriate. As for the gift, anything for friends. It's nothing, really.. A vase for flowers, I know Illium has beautiful flowers. I - err - that's not a regift from a bouquet from Paul." She pointed at the gift.

"Honest."

"If it was," Daia laughed, "I'd wonder if you might've been a bit hasty in showing him the virtual door." Ana made a slight motion with her head that, for someone else, would've probably been rolling her eyes.

"The Ducts charity event?" Daia asked, once she had suppressed her giggle. "I'll be sorry to miss that - only so much travelling we can manage, sadly. Have fun there - you were going to sort out something to be involved with the music, weren't you, did that go through?"

"I'm going to be playing a song on violin, possibly from one of the classical composers but I think I may play Van Garrett, the composer from earlier this century, or one of my own works. My sister in law is going to watch the baby for the night. Everything is going to be perfect." She drummed her hands on her knee. "Going to dress nice. The last time I did that was my wedding some two years ago and for work. That jacket of mine and band shirts have got high mileage. As for the music, I have no idea how to play instruments or read sheet music, I just wing it."

She chuckled. "I'm totally musically incompetent."

"As for the door..." She made a sour face. "He's just not really my type. Maybe when he realizes I've dated a woman for nearly ten years. He's not creepy like a few of the others. You've been in.. Err." She crossed her arms across her chest and leaned forward. "You two must be acutely capable of offering advice on the subject of relationships, right? I don't mean to make assumptions. I had a boyfriend before Chris but he was a fucking idiot who wanted me to become a Justicar. Really. 'You'll be the first Human Justicar!' He'd always say. " She added quietly: "Between Sand hits. Drug addict Asari-obsessed lunatic.."

"Don't mention that within earshot of Illium Entertainment," Ana advised solemnly. "They'd do it, they really would."

"Justicar of Terra?" Daia suggested. "You know, Vanessa Vansen-"

"Keelah, you've got her thinking about it," Ana said, shaking her head fondly.

"Relationships have some... unusual quirks, in our line of work," Daia admitted, thankfully willing to drop the movie idea. "It's not a punishing career - if you have the inclination, and are smart about it - but it's rare to meet someone outside the industry who can really grasp what it means to be an escort, how that would affect a genuine relationship. My experience in that regard has actually been pretty limited."

"Being a professional dominatrix on Omega is simpler," Ana put in. "You avoid relationships, because everyone who develops a fancy for you is a creeper of the highest order. Kind of goes with the territory. I... never had what you'd call a great facility for stable relationships." She reached out - quite accurately - to gently touch the back of Daia's scalp. "Sometimes, the universe just throws you a lifeline."