[CITADEL] Too close to the sun [CLOSED]

An outdoor cafe in the Presidium. The artificial sun was shining bright, and the smell of fresh food was rising through the air, distracting a few people from busy crowds. Sitting at one of the tables, Sarah Thompson crossed her arms, leaning forward, sitting across from her partner. Chris reached over, grabbing her hands. "You should, if it's bothering you that much." "I just feel like it's affecting me way too much. I don't know- I didn't let it bother me during the war, I just pushed it all aside-" "It'll be okay. There are no god-squids burning down the village as it were, you can deal with those issues now." The other woman spoke quietly, making strong eye contact.

Sarah recoiled slowly. "I - .. I'll see about it." "You'd best. When's Icarus supposed to be here?" "Soon enough." The blonde pressed her face into her hands and exhaled. "It's funny, it's only after everyone almost dies that we meet the people we've met over the extranet." A statement of "You spend too much time on it" drew a icy glare.

Icarus walked over to the outdoor cafe in the familiar service uniform, however that was the only thing that was really familiar. After shooting at indoctrinated humans for 2 months and then another 10 months of military service, a person can change. His frame had gotten much heavier in muscle, coupled with a final growth spurt with a year of age, Icarus looked more like his own bigger brother than he did himself.

"Hello Sarah, it's been a while." he turned to Chris. "It's a pleasure to meet you Ma'am. Sarah's wife I presume?" he sat down at the table with the straight posture expected of a military person. "How have you both been?" he asked with a smile.

Chris gave a nod with a smile, clasping her hands together. "Yes, that's m' name. It's a pleasure!" She shot a hand over.
The blonde gave the man's shoulder a friendly shove. "Look at you, Alliance military! That's great! You've been doing well for yourself, it looks like." She had a wide grin, then waved for a hostess to bring over a few glasses of tea. "Gosh, it's been about a year, hasn't it?" The woman glanced over. "How are you holding up, kiddo?"

Icarus took Chris' hand firmly and shook it. "Yes I guess I have. They promoted me to Serviceman 2nd Class a couple of weeks ago because I served a year." he pointed at his rank insignia, now bearing the lower curve of the first class mark. He frowned at the next question. "You know I got deployed to London for that final battle at Earth? The platoon got torn apart in the final push. Elements got seperated, and I was cornered by husks. They almost got to me. I remember just gathering as much energy as I can and waited until they got as close as possible before..." he made an exploding gesture with one hand.

"After that, I woke up with a collapsed lung, and a lot of other internal injuries I hadn't known about then. I tried to walk back to the FOB we came from with my compass, but I couldn't walk all the way. I just lay down by a wrecked car and just waited for an hour, talking in to my radio, trying to get anyone to talk to me. I... I just felt so alone I guess. I still have nightmares about that feeling. Eventually a passing turian patrol picked me up, and I spent two months in recovery from my injuries, after that, I served my time with garrison duty at the citadel."

Icarus' eyes twinkle a little and he smiles. "But you know? It was worth it. Because it-" he pointed in a vague direction where earth was supposed to be. "is safe from those bastards now. And that helped me get through recovery."

Sarah was all smiles. "It is safe, but now, we're back to Homo homini lupus." She shrugged, leaning back to sip her tea. Chris peered over at her partner. "Wot?" She lifted a brow. Sarah paused. "Oh. Man is wolf to man. It's latin- It was something my-" She paused and took a breath. "An old colleague of mine taught me." She took another drink of tea. Chris pursed her lips. "Right."

Sarah peered over. "A collapsed lung? Did they fit you with the good stuff during your recovery? Have you been living in the base or Alliance Tower?"

"Well... my lung injuries were in that sweet spot where it's not enough to replace the whole thing, but enough that I'd be bedridden for months waiting for it to heal. And then my internal injuries required some cybernetics to get healed quick enough to catch the spot they had for the garrison here, so I had to pay for that with my parent's saved up fortune, or what's left of it after the economy crashed." He took a sip of his tea. "There's a couple of small Alliance bases dotted along the citadel and we get rotated through those sometimes, but the Tower is where the main fraction of the garrison is deployed at any one time. We do patrols, and the 'stand at a door for 10 hours' shifts are rare unless you did something. The good news is that this service is going to make it really cheap and easy to get a tertiary education degree once i get out."

Chris took a long swig of her tea and glanced over at Sarah for a moment, then turned to face Icarus. "Well, if you ever need food, I've got a catering service and a kitchen in Shin Akiba, I'm sure the budget wouldn't go completely overboard if one of Sarah's friend's ate free." She gave an exaggerated shrug, then a playfully stern point. "Don't go broadcasting my hospitality, however."

Sarah leaned back, crossing her feet. She stirred the tea, moving a slice of lemon below the ice line. "I don't know about your folks, kiddo, but I - We all lost people. Some more than others." She glanced at her wife, briefly, taking a sip from her straw. "I'm glad you made it. There's only a handful of people out there I know- Grenok, who's probably off with his dozenth kid on Tuchanka, King, who's out and about with the military and her family, and you." She shrugged, quietly adding "And Chris' associates."

"What's wrong with my associates?"

"Nothing, I just don't know them that well."

Icarus widened his smile. "It would be nice to get some off base, honest home cooked food for once. It's either MREs at the base or fast food when I'm taking off base time."

His expression changed to a frown when Sarah spoke. "Yeah, DNA Identification done post war was done, confirmed what I already knew, my Dad was indoctrinated by Cerberus and conscripted to serve on Veratix station. I... I shot him in self defense, took his tags and nearly died in despair on that station." His eyes seemed to become glassy as he reached into his shirt and pulled out 3 dogtags on a chain, one of them his, two of them with a Cerberus logo on it.

"You'll be glad to know I took care of yours." he said with a slight smile. "Mom... she was at sanctuary. There wasn't enough of her left in that husk to confirm it, but records confirm she was indoctrinated." He rubbed at his face. "Starr, she was this girl I met on the boards, I don't know what happened to her after the crucible went off. I just found out Wilde is in boot, and I have no idea where Zareena is. But, I have a family in my unit now. It's not as bad as it was a year ago when everything was...fresh."

Chris shook her head at the notion of MRE's, then leaned over to her side and lifted a large paper sack. She set it on the table and pushed it at him. "Enough cookies to last a few weeks. We sent "Nat" an order's worth for her family as well." She leaned forward, scratching her side. "Lots of types, this one's on the house, I suppose." She sighed.

Burke took the Cerberus tags for a moment, giving them a hard look over. She handed them back and offered a weak frown. "I'm sorry about your parents, kiddo. Cerberus took mine too. Father died in an accident. Mother died in Alliance Tower when it was raided." She ran a hand through her hair and slowly stood. "They can't take anything from anyone now, alright?" She crossed her arms.
"The two of us have to go. It was good hearing from you, kiddo, if you ever need anything, just call one of us." She reached over, giving Icarus a pat on the shoulder.

Chris gave a nod. "Any friend of Sarah's is a friend of mine, mate." She spoke quietly, then the two were gone, on their way out of the cafe.