[Citadel-Presidium] Surprise Visit

It was an impulse really. Flower had decided not to tell her father about her upcoming leave, and just stop by the old apartment and surprise the old man. He didn't like most surprised, but Flower felt like he'd make an exception for her. Especially since she had been forced to have very little contact for such a long time.

Dad hadn't changed the passcode since she'd last been there, the same boring sequence of numbers that had been such a pain in the ass to remember. She idly wondered if she should tell him to change it, or if it was made to be impossible to crack. Whatever, not important.

As usual, the VI came right to the door, flickering on and off. "Hello Mistress Flower. It is a pleasure to have you visit, especially since it's been - error, time not found - since your last visit."

Flower raised an eyebrow, "Well look who's still full of glitches." Shaking her head, Flower raised her voice to a level where she should be heard through most of the place unless even more rooms were now soundproofed. "Dad? Mom? You guys home?"

The old turian was, for once, not in his soundproof office, a fact possibly owed to him having reason to interact with the world outside of it. He had situated himself in a comfortable chair and was relaxing, smoking a Tsigaro with one hand and holding a dataslate in the other, idly switching from news reports to financial readouts. He nearly choked when he heard Flower's voice, the Tsigaro falling out of his mouth and onto his lap as he quickly set down the datapad, snatching the burning stick back up before it could do any damage to his clothes. "That you Flower?" He shouted back, smiling as he took a final drag before putting it out. "I'm in the living room!"

"Who else would it be old man?" Flower walked into the room, a grin on her face. She wasted no time going over to him, bending down to give him a hug. "So did I surprise you?"

A few moments later a tall quarian woman dressed in dull brown clothing covered in muck and grime poked her head out of a side door. "Who is it? Because if its another--" the words died in her throat as she Flower at the door. An actual genuine smile forming underneath her helmet. "Flower! What a pleasant surprise!" She stepped out of the room to join Davril. "I wish you'd told us you were coming. I would have", she looked down at her work clothes. "I probably would have worn something more appealing".

Davril laughed and gave Flower a tight hug as he stood, smiling back at her. "I guess I only have the ong daughter, huh?" He said, turning to Kari when he heard her come in. "You look great anyway, hun. Flower, you want to sit down, tell us what you've been up to?"

Flower ignored Davril for a moment to give Kari a brief hug. "Mom, I am the last person you need to dress up for."

Sitting down in a chair, Flower shrugged. "I can't really say much about the mission itself. But seriously I was sick of some of the people on the mission by the end of it."

Kari hugged Flower back before sitting down herself, looking at Davril. "Of course you would say that. But being dressed like a filthy vagrant in front of company is not something I enjoy"

She looked at Flower. "And what kind of people are we talking about? Because you have my sympathy, me having to deal with all sorts of Hierarchy types day in, day out myself.

Davril couldn't help but roll his eyes at the thought of "Hierarchy Types," chuckling slighty and sitting down. "There are enough of those people here to make a man seriously consider leaving the station. I could probably direct operations better from the Terminus, anyway," he said, thinking to himself for a moment.

"So, Flower," he started cheerfully, "What can you tell us?"

Flower leaned back and stared at the ceiling. "Only thing I can really do is bitch about some of the things my squadmates have done to annoy me. Tarcius' attempts to cook always ending in spectacular failure. Dai'na and Apaad always doing it in stupid placed and getting caught. Oh, and then there was Nera who constantly tried to get me to leave Cal for her."

She gave her parents a sly look, "I've got over a years worth of stories to tell about each, take your pick."

"I really wish you would move to the Terminus, Dav, or anywhere that isn't the Citadel. For my sanity at least", she looked at Flower and chuckled. "Tell us about Tarcius' attempts at cooking. Not that it matters to me, I can't eat anything that isn't paste anyway. But stories about fantastic failures are always fun to hear about."

"Okay, so parts of the soldier dorms had a small kitchen so we could make small meals and snacks when were off duty. Tarcius tried to make something about once a week before he was just banned. I couldn't eat anything he made, but according to everyone that could, he tended to over flavor and overcook things."

Flower held back and laugh, but still grinned. "So one time I come back from being off duty, and half the kitchen is gone. At first I thought something really bad had happened until someone just said 'Tarcius', so I knew he'd tried to cook something again. And well...you know how you're supposed to at least put a hole in a can before you try to heat things up, or put metal near anything that used microwaves?"

Flower paused for a moment to see if what she said sunk in, "So this idiot decides he wants to heat up some canned food. And then puts it in a microwave heating unit. Naturally, the heat caused the pressure in the can to build, so the can blew up. This caused the microwave to blow up and the kitchen to catch fire."

Flower shook her head and let herself laugh, "No one was hurt, and the fire was out in ten minutes. But we had to cook on hotplates for a month while they fixed the kitchen, and Tarcius was banned from the kitchen by order of the commander in charge."

"Maybe I will, Kari. What do you think, Flower? I could set up on a planet or a station like Omega," he asked her, and laughed at her story.

"That's a good one, and a fine example of why you have someone assigned to cook. Say, Nera sounds a bit like an asari name. Thought you weren't into them?"

Kari laughed quietly. "Oh I am sure he will get to a higher tier at some point. No matter how dumb he is. That's just how they are."

She looked at Davril briefly before speaking. "Yes. How would you feel about me and your father settled on a place like Omega?" she was much more interested in that answer than anything else. It could be a very inconveniencing move for Flower, even if leaving the Citadel was probably one of the most desired things Kari could want.

Flower shrugged, where her family lived didn't matter to her personally. It still would matter in the end depending... "If you could find a place that I wouldn't get in trouble visiting."

She sighed. "And trust me Dad, I don't like asari that way. I don't like anything female in that way for that matter. But Nera seemed to be into anyone she damn pleased. And if she wanted someone, she knew in about five minutes. She would pester you for hours to spend time with her, no matter what shit you had to do."

"So she decided she liked me. Since we were gonna be with each other for a long while, I was just polite to her. Never really told her to go away and did my best to show that I wasn't interested. Hell, she wasn't even the type of person I'd be friends with. Sometimes I'd just tell her I was busy and just ignored her. There were some days where I'd just spend time in my dorm so I'd be left alone. Although that wasn't just her, I got sick of everyone at least a few times."

"Apparently, my hints were misread spectacularly. Because one day, she comes up and starts blathering about how I was really good at playing hard to get and to stop the games. I had told her about Cal and that I wasn't interested at all despite what she though. She basically begged me to break up with Cal for three days."

She sighed, "She eventually took the hint. And then proceeded to only speak to me from other people for the rest of the time. Did I mention this happened over the course of the first two months of the mission?"

Davril laughed again shaking his head. "Some people don't learn, do they?" he said mostly to himself, quietly pulling up his omni-tool to make a note about checking Terminus real estate. "I don't think there'd be an issue with Omega, I can look for a place close to a dock if you're worried about spending time there... but I don't think the Hierarchy bars people from going there, no?"

Kari snorted. "Typical. That seems to be the only thing sapient species think of these days. And while you were on a mission too? Unbelievable. Did you at least report this nonsense to your superiors? Surely even they wouldn't allow this", she said, her eyes narrowing a bit in anger before quickly going to normal and turning to Davril. "Can you believe that?"

She sighed rubbing her visor. "Yes. I don't think the Hierarchy would have any real issues with you visiting Omega or somewhere in the Terminus. Provided it doesn't interfere with your 'duty'"

Flower shrugged. "It shouldn't interfere if I can prove you guys live there."

"But we've been talking about me this whole time. What have you guys been up to?"

"Proving it shouldn't be hard. What, do they want a picture of me there?" He said, laughing to himself when he thought about how they might handle it.

"Picking up the pieces from the war, mostly. Got a medical discharge from the Hierarchy, psyche issues. I got referred to counselling, but it didn't go anywhere. Besides, knowing them, if I got my head fixed they'd just drag me back in!" he said, laughing again as he downplayed the issues that led to his discharge. The Hierarchy didn't kick you out for a minor issue, especially not after a war when they need every able body.

Kari chuckled at Davril before speaking. "Nothing important but still busy nonetheless. Taking care of your father for the most part. Working for the Hierarchy. I am working so damn much these days I have hardly any time for things like dancing or walking Plika", she sighed. "I did have a C-sec officer here in the Presidium try to run me in for vagrancy a few months ago. This entire place is wearing me down."

Flower frowned at Davril for a moment. She knew enough to know how serious something would have to be for her father to be discharged. Dad...

She was too concerned with what he said to really hear what Kari was talking about. She just looked at Davril, "Do...do you want me to extend my leave for a bit?"

Do you guys need me here?