[Citadel] Missing pieces (Closed)

The cafe wasn't a fantastic place, by any means, but it, at least, sold food and coffee. The only thing a cafe is really required to do. He had picked it because it was big, had relatively poor customer service, and, above all, was almost completely empty. Save for an asari and her bondmate, Titus was the only customer there.

The turian sat at a table, alone, with one eye on the clock and the other on the door. The wait was almost excruciating; he had been here for fifteen minutes now, and had downed two cups of shitty coffee in that time.

In the last two or so years since he had seen her, a lot had happened. Yet at the same time, it felt like almost nothing of note had happened. It was odd, but, in reference to the scope of the Reaper War, everything seemed almost trivial.

Inside, he was a mixed bag of emotions. Excitement, sorrow, a little anger, confusion... He didn't know what to feel by-and-large when she arrived. Only time would tell how his emotions played out.

With a small gesture of his hand, he checked the time on his omnitool again, saw only a minute had passed, and promptly downed half of his third cup of coffee.

The woman sighed as she saw the cafe.

Good to know he hasn't changed too much...

Kaitlyn, on the other hand, had changed. She had set out on her own in the last two or so years, and had made a fairly large list of contacts to replace the ones she'd lost during all of the shit a couple of years back. Yet, hearing from that one turian that she had been through so much with had sent her emotions into a full-blown catastrophe. To say she had got on the first available trip back to the Citadel would have been an understatement. Brushing her bangs away from her face, she entered the cafe, and wasn't surprised to find it empty.

Omega was still worse, though.

Spotting Titus, and seeing him downing something from a cup, she quickly walked over to the table and placed her hand over his cup.

"Good to see you're still addicted to the dextro-equivalent of coffee, Ti." Keeping her hand over the cup, she took the seat across from him. "Really, I'm surprised you haven't given your pretty-little self a heart attack."

Titus smiled down at the hand and gave a huff of amusement.
"You and me both. You should see how much paperwork there's involved in a post-RW galaxy."
He moved his gaze from the cup and hand to her face instead. She definitely looked different from his memories, but, and he couldn't explain why, Titus seemed to think she looked almost exactly the same. Or, at least, he felt the same around her as back then.

Scratching his chin and clearing his throat, he launched a question.
"How've you been then? From what I recall, you didn't pick one of the safest careers there are. I'm surprised you haven't given your pretty-little self a heart attack."

Titus gave a cocky grin at that, mandibles splaying in amusement. After a moment, he thoughtfully reached down to tap his chest, and added, "or worse."

"I've been alright, and no, it really isn't the safest job, but it pays well. What about you? I remember... Actually, what do you do?" For the life of her, she couldn't remember what Titus did, only that he was a Cabal.

"And as for heart attacks, I'm actually fit, healthy, and not a caffeine addict." Kaitlyn playfully punched his shoulder at the last part. She missed him during the past years, but work had come first.

"Me? I'm currently in an admin position here, dealing with all the paperwork and bullshit of pretty much any cabal. I recently, about four months ago, was rotated back to the Citadel from Palaven. Helping with the reconstruction, y'know."

He smiled again when the punch hit him, and fell silent. All the turian did was look across the table with a big grin on his face, eyes locked with Kaitlyn's.

It was definitely good to see her again. He was so overcome with emotion, all sorts of emotions, that he didn't trust himself to speak, lest he say something stupid. With bright yellow eyes still gazing at Kaitlyn's face, he raised the cup to his face, and drank deeply.

Kaitlyn cringed when Titus told her what he had been up to. Desk jobs were boring as fuck.

"Oh, wow...You poor thing. Compared to the shit I've been going through, that sounds really boring." Kaitlyn watched him drink in a way that a predator hunts their prey.

"You're still terrible at hiding emotions. What's eating you?" Her eyes, now green and white, met Titus' yellow eye as if trying to peer through a window.

At the question, Titus shifted uncomfortably. He honestly didn't know why he felt like this; he was glad to see her again, to be sure, but why did he feel mad? Sad? Abandoned? The turian rubbed at his face and thought of something to say.

"Well, the thing is... Look... You see... Last time, you left without saying goodbye."
That must have been it. Titus' demeanor hadn't changed. He didn't look angry, and oddly enough, he didn't really feel it either. Just... Tired.

"I didn't know where you went, I had no way of contacting you... It was by chance that I found you again. Look... Honestly, I thought I had done something, and that made you run away. Let me ask you something: before the Citadel was taken... Before the Temple... What was I to you? I remember you whispering something to me, before you all went down the tunnel, but I can't remember what you said."

That was a lie. Titus could remember exactly what she had said.

Kaitlyn closed her eyes and let out a tired sigh.

So that was the problem...

"You were everything to me, Ti... And you still are. You made me feel like the luckiest girl in the galaxy. Back at the Temple, I had told you to stay alive for your sister and I. If you had died, I wouldn't have forgiven either of us. You for leaving me alone, and myself for not being there to help you." Kaitlyn stopped looking him in the eyes and took an interest in her feet.

"As for why I left without saying anything... You were too good for me... I destroyed your home and tried to kill you once upon a time. I just... Didn't feel I was good enough for you..."

"Oh." Like Kaitlyn, Titus suddenly took an extreme interest in the floor.
"Hey," he said, still looking down. "I'm sorry. Not just for-... Well, everything, really. but why would you think you were never good enough for me?"

Slowly, he raised a claw and began absentmindedly playing with his empty cup, rolling it around on the table.
"I mean, despite those things, despite it all, I didn't kick you out. I didn't try to retaliate. I obviously cared enough about you to keep you with me. When it happened-," the turian was stony-faced, talking about the Reaper attack on the Citadel, "All I could think about was you. I was beating myself up while I hid from them, wondering why I hadn't stayed with you. I thought you were dead."

The cup grabbed Titus' attention again, and he stared at it, but didn't shift his gaze back up to Kaitlyn. "And then, in the Temple, I wanted to go with you, I did. But I thought that if I went, you wouldn't've made it. That I had to stay behind and cover everybody elses escape, otherwise... Well..."

The turian tapped the table and suddenly blurted out, "then why did you come back? To the Citadel?"
It was a good thing that she came back, he didn't want to be misunderstood, but it didn't make any sense to him.

Kaitlyn let out a hefty sigh.

"Well... you know... Omega isn't a safe place... My employer kind of... exploded... So I figured I'd just head home, and before I knew what I was doing I had hitched a ride to the Citadel..." Kaitlyn looked down at the floor. While it was partly true, she didn't tell him the most important detail. Her former employer had hired a group of mercenaries for the job, and all of them, including her, had done a spectacular job. However, the man thought he could get away without paying them.

They hadn't taken too kindly to that decision. Needless to say, there wasn't much left of the man. Or his apartment.

Well, that certainly sounded like her. He gave a small, dry smile, letting the cup be. He had noticed she said 'home', referring to the Citadel, which piqued his curiousity.
"Home," the turian muttered, before being silent for a moment and then clearing his throat.
"So despite how long you've been on Omega, you think of the Citadel as home?"

Titus moved a hand up to rub at his mouth absentmindedly, a decidedly human gesture.
"Are you here to stay? I mean, you're going to stay, right?"
He was silent for another moment, but then his mandibles splayed and his mouth opened. No noise came out. Instead, he did the turian equivalent of pursing his lips, closing his mouth once more.