[Illium, Everest Bar] The Proposition [Closed]

Rain slicked against a highrise office window with the distant hustle of the city's spaceport flashing bright streaks through the stormclouds. Gazing into her own reflection, Christina Waller swirled the wine in the bottom of her glass before turning back to her desk, green eyes focused on the holographic mockup of her new restaurant. Making her way back to her seat, she finished off a sample of the local vineyards (or wherever this attempt was from) and set her glass down. "Danara, ensure my next appointment finds no difficulty getting past security." She spoke through her earpiece to an assigned receptionist outside.

Daia switched off her umbrella and shivered reflexively as the strip across the building's entryway dried her feet, then re-checked Christina's directions to be sure she hadn't got mixed up coming out of the maglev station and ended up at the wrong address.

"That's the one," she murmured to herself, heading inside. The security desk waved her through after the usual query of her omni-tool, and in no time she was in the elevator, watching the floor indicators slide by one after another. She checked the time; no rush before she had to head back.

"Hello. Daia T'Nara, for Christina Waller? Thank you," she smiled, as the receptionist likewise indicated for her to head on into one of the offices.

"Christina, good to see you again!" she exclaimed as she saw the human, reaching for her hand. She appeared somewhat eccentric, but that was nothing new - clad in an unassuming wraparound dress with a jacket/skirt kind of design to it, but her arms and legs were decorated with what seemed to be some kind of tribal leather strappy thing; her biceps, thighs, and calves sported sheaths for blades, all of which were vacant.

"Sorry about the bare feet," she said, glancing down at herself. "I figured you wouldn't be at the 'no shoes, no entry' stage just yet. And Goddess knows what these would do to your carpet." She held up the high-heeled boots clutched in her other hand - a similar style to what was showing of her costume, and they looked like they were intended to assassinate whatever she happened to walk on.

Chris shook the woman's hand with practiced grace, briefly giving her a mellow smile. Returning behind her desk, the woman sat down and crossed her leg over her knee. She waved off the Asari's concern and let her clasped hands rest on her knee. "You can wear what you want. I'm not at all concerned with the state of the floor. I have goals and capital to make." She slowly collected herself.

"The first time I came to this planet, I was the victim of a crime. Fearing I'd killed my wife and son, I went back to the Citadel to drink myself to death. Sarah came back. Sarah was furious I apparently sat on my hands, I'm sure you've heard it all." She stood and approached the window, briefly taking a deep breath. "With recent revalations regarding the health of my son," She projected a post by Sarah, "I need .." She sighed, turning to the Asari. "I can't move on. I need her. Sarah is my soulmate, every bit as important to me as Ana is to you."

"Sarah looks to you as a friend. You want what's best for her and so do I. You've got the best chance at mending the gap between the two of us and that's why you're here." She adopted a businesslike demeanour and folded her arms. "Do this and I'll donate for your new company. I have enough financial power that I can ensure you outpace your competitors."

"Oh, the chaos that's ensued when people have told me to wear what I want," Daia joked, seating herself. She let her smile fade to polite attention, and didn't interrupt Christina while she spoke.

"I see," she said quietly at the conclusion. She took a moment to compose her thoughts, biting her lip as she looked at the rain-streaked window before turning her attention back.

"If I were to do this, you wouldn't be under any obligation," she began. "That probably counts as a major personality flaw in an Illium asari - and Goddess knows we could do a lot with major backing - but it..." She gave a sympathetic smile, and shook her head. "I can't ask compensation for something like this."

She paused a moment, reflecting on Sarah and Christina, and her place... between them, in a way, it seemed. If that were to be how it panned out.

"If I were to do this," she said again, "I'll need to understand what happened between you two. I know that's asking for very personal details, but... I don't see another way I could do right by you and her. Truth be told," she shrugged, "I haven't heard it all. Sarah has shared some things, but I haven't pried, and - well, there was talk on CDN, but you know what a rachi's nest that place is for manic gossip and topic drift. I understand how strongly you feel for her - I do. Can you tell me what happened?"

Chris paced a moment, then looked back to the Asari with a flat demeanor. "The day the event happened, she and I had been going through a spat. She arrived just a few days prior, I was under a great deal of pressure with my filming and her pregnancy." She pursed her lips in thought.

"She and I separated to cool off after a particular argument that saw a mattress flipped. I got another room, I took a bath, got changed and there was a knock on the door. I thought it was Sarah, opened the door and got knocked to the floor by an armed man without a face. He asked where Sarah was and I refused."

She rubbed her wrist. The woman did her best to avoid showing the Asari her pained expression. "He grabbed my hair, threw me into furniture and beat me senseless. Told me that Sarah was a monster and I was one for protecting her. He fired a gun to intimidate me. I .. I gave in."

"Sarah .. I don't know how or why things are the way they are. She assumes I gave her up willingly or perhaps that I'm lying or some other fucking thing," She let her accent slip out, "It's stupid and I'd never FUCKING DO SOMETHING LIKE THIS WILLINGLY."

In her fury, the woman thew her wine glass at the wall. "Then there's people like Rondor or other fucking idiots on that bloody shithole of a forum who run my name through mud because I ran away! I drank! I took drugs! I thought I'd killed my wife and baby by allowing that jackal to take them! I wanted to be dead too!"

She heaved with heavy breathing, her fists clenched and trembling.
"But I'm not. I want to make this right. I need to make this right."

Daia sat forward as Christina talked - her compromise between wanting to give her personal space without crowding, and not wanting to seem dispassionate or cold; she wasn't a therapist, and didn't want to seem to be behaving like one. She jumped in surprise as the wine glass hit the wall, but didn't move to leave, and gradually relaxed again.

"Making it right may be a frustratingly slow process," she said at last. "I'm not saying there's no hope; I tend to believe there always is. To the annoyance of the realists around me, sometimes." She allowed a little smile to show, then sobered again. "But mending the gap, as you say... That would take patience, and time, earning trust anew on both sides."

She held up a hand, appealing for indulgence.

"I know you know all this," she said. "I'm trying to show where I stand, what I feel I can do. I can't mend the gap, only you and she, together, can do that. I can't decide what form that mending might take, either. Even with trust, there's... You and she may discover you're not the people you once were. We all change, all the time, sometimes... too much. I've been there," she added quickly, forestalling any immediate response. "A long time ago."

She looked up at Christina.

"I'm not trying to dissuade you," she said. "But is that a possibility you're open to? The gap mended, but not the way things used to be between you two."

Christina dropped into her chair and shrugged. "I know I'm not going to get what I want." She reached out, grabbing the neck of the Thessian wine. She took a long drink and slouched onto her desk. "I .. yes. She's consistently refused my attempts. I thought having you help would change things."

"It's been wrecking my mind lately. I miss her, I miss the smell of her hair, cooking her breakfast and that sort of thing."

Her eyes got heavy with welling tears. "I can't believe I left Thessia. I can't believe I abandoned them both."

"Is that how it was?" Daia asked gently. "Abandoning?"

She had no roadmap, but she had to ask; Christina's regret was eating her up inside, and there was no way Daia could help, whatever form that help might take, if she didn't understand the form that regret was taking.

She wondered how she would have fared in similar circumstances - her life for Ana's? How Ana would choose was a given, even if Daia wasn't entirely comfortable with how highly her bondmate placed the asari's welfare above her own; it was a fact, pretending otherwise would do no good. What would she, herself, do? Daia wanted to believe she would be strong enough not to give in to fear, but didn't everyone believe that, until it happened? There was no way to know until the moment came. She couldn't condemn Christina, not at all.

Chris glanced up at the woman with tears streaming down her face. She didn't say anything, instead choosing to take another drink. After a moment, she stood up and staggered her way to the window. After swaying a moment, she carefully sat down on the carpet and watched the cars dart by.

"Nearly a decade. I promised I'd be there for her in times hardest and easiest. My father hated that I fell for her, I was to marry Armand Diaz, the heir of another family, you know, merge our fortunes."

Another drink. "Saw her when I stepped out of a party Father was hosting. The sun was setting and she was beautiful. I couldn't take my eyes off her." Another drink and she dried her eyes. "We went on four dates before she told me that I'd never be bored with her like the other suitors I had and I told her I loved her."

"She told me she was a member of Cerberus the next morning. I ...didn't care. We had this on-again off-again thing whenever she was on the planet and after Cerberus attacked us she was all I had. She proposed finally, We were married."

"I just abandoned her thinking she was dead because of my mistake. Because of what I did." Another drink.

Daia swallowed at the broken grief on Christina's face, and got up a moment after her, lowering herself to the carpet beside her. She offered her hand - didn't take the human's, but offered hers, if she wanted.

"I'm sorry to bring this all up," she said quietly. "I wish I could give you an easy answer. I don't want to promise something I can't deliver."

"Don't sugar your words, then. Just say what I need to hear." She dropped the bottle and crossed her arms, resting them on her knees.

"Come on, you have centuries of bloody practice, tell me what I should do." She spoke with a bitter tone, her voice slurred and broken with a few sharp sniffs. She wiped her eyes.

"Okay," Daia nodded, after a second to figure out 'sugar your words'. "I feel what you need is guidance - if it were me, I'd look to a Matriarch, but I'm asari, that's what we do when we don't know what to do. For you, a friend, or a counsellor. The form isn't that important, only that you find a means to..." She hesitated, then went on. "...to start to heal the pain all this has left in you. As long as you're hurting, that pain is going to inform your decisions, your outlook."

She shook her head gently.

"I'm not saying there's some state of perfect contentment you can reach where the pain is gone," she added. "Nobody's life is that smooth. But if you can... handle the pain, without it turning into anger or grief when it's touched on... I think that's what you need to try to do. It won't be quick, or easy, but that's the way forward I see. For what it's worth from me. And I do believe Sarah will want to support you in doing that. Whether it brings you two back together..." She shrugged slightly. "Nobody knows the future. This is how I would try, though. It's what I've done, when I was where you are now."

And she and Gela never had returned to one another, she reflected. But it wasn't pain and loss that kept them apart; that had been a comfort, once she had been able to see it.

Chris shook her head and slowly stood up. "I .. no. I'm just .." She pressed her forehead against the glass. "I don't know. I think I'm becoming unhinged. I don't sleep that often anymore and I just can't stop thinking about how much I need to fix this. How much I miss her and .." She rubs her arms, turning to Daia. "I told her to move on. She's moving on. I .. I need to practice what I preach. Send her money for the baby and be thankful I get to see him every other week."

Daia stood up slowly beside Christina, and smiled when she mentioned Albert.

"He's a cutie," she grinned. "Ana and I met him briefly, just the one time - dropped in while we were on the Citadel for business." She remembered for a moment, fondly; small children always seemed to put her in a the-galaxy-is-a-wonderful-playground kind of mood, despite knowing there was a lot of darkness in space as well. It would be pleasant to think that fate had used up most of its darkness for a good long while.

"Moving on is... it can be a relief," she admitted after the moment's silence. "Having a direction to move in, any direction - it's better than having none. I know this is going to sound terribly obvious, but if you can settle your thoughts enough to get back to sleeping regularly... Doesn't make problems go away, but the brain works a lot better at solving them. Can't hurt."

She pondered for a moment, thinking of Sarah, how she had been last time they had met, what she had gathered since.

"Would you still like me to talk to her?" she offered.

Chris slowly rose to her feet and wiped away the runny makeup from her face. "No. No, I don't believe that will be necessary. I.. I want her back. I'd give anything to have what we had back, Daia, but I don't want to ruin what I have now in a pursuit of what I may not get. I'm lucky enough to see my baby."

She pulled her hair back. "...I also don't think you can get through to her."

Daia tilted her head, with the ghost of a wry grin.

"You may be right there," she admitted easily. "I don't have much of a persuasive streak. Except for the one particular kind, and I know that's not why she keeps in touch." She chuckled softly and shook her head. Privately she wondered how true that was - without a doubt it was easy to coax clients when they knew they were about to get lucky, but it wasn't that rare that people who had met her socially had noted she had 'a way about her', or words to that effect. And Sarah had looked to her for advice more than once - granted that advice tended to be Daia acting as a sounding board (as she felt the best 'advice' was) rather than laying out plans on her own initiative, but still. Perhaps it was truer to say she felt persuasion was only really worth it when the person, on some level, knew they ought to be persuaded. Whether Sarah should or shouldn't... only hindsight told that kind of thing, for the most part.

"I'm sorry this," she gestured at herself, "hasn't been what you hoped. I hope it won't be the last time we see one another, now you're on Illium. If you don't think it'll do your reputation any harm," she gave a lop-sided grin, "I'll certainly come to your grand opening, if I may. Classy dress, I promise."