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“I swore if I ever saw your stupid face again, I’d punch it.” Tolvan was as grimly serious as ever.
Not how Aphra wanted to start this little rendezvous. Maybe she should have rented a nicer hotel room? Or would that have been too obvious? “Lucky me you responded to my video message anyway?” She offered with a shrug.
“You owe me a new datapad,” Tolvan informed her, tossing one with a pattern of cracks in the middle of the vid-screen approximately one fist in diameter. (Aphra may have bitten her lip, thinking about past occasions when she was also approximately one of Tolvan’s fists in diameter.)
“You know, fair,” Aphra agreed, waving her omnitool at Tolvan’s to transfer the funds. “I did fake my death and not tell you about it. But, in fairness to me, you are a very poor liar, sir.” Tolvan grunted her irritation and gestured for Aphra to get the hell on with it. “So I’ve been investigating Cerberus on my own, trying to figure out what their plan was, and threads kept leading back to Horizon.”
“Supposed to be a safe haven from the Reapers.” Tolvan snorted again. “Anyone who believes that is–”
“Vulaada went there,” Aphra interrupted, sparing Tolvan the indignity of insulting Aphra’s…somewhere between adoptive daughter and baby sister? Aphra sighed. Honestly, the kid was usually the more sensible out of the two of them. But she’d gone to Horizon anyway, because she was a terrified kid, alone in a galaxy which had just gotten an order of magnitude scarier than it had any right to be. Which is why she had reached out to the one person who she a) trusted, b) thought might be able to help her and c) thought might actually be willing to help her.
“Fuck,” Tolvan muttered, and started pacing back and forth across the grimy hotel carpet. “I…I didn’t know.”
“Sorry, sir. Hard to keep in touch when you’re trying to lay low.” She grinned, not shyly, barely embarrassed. “I’ve been trying to catch those Battlespace features as they come out. Makes me feel like I’m still a little connected to you. It’s…nice.” She dropped back to sit on the edge of the bed.
“I haven’t stopped thinking about you, either.” Tolvan added quietly as she sat down next to Aphra. Sometimes it was about how much she wanted to kill Aphra, but the archaeologist didn’t need that sentiment right now. “Come here,” she whispered, and laid back, and let Aphra lie on top of her, and sob against her muscled chest and shoulder. They lay like that for several minutes, Tolvan’s hand tracing up and down Aphra’s back.
“I guess I should ask how you’ve been,” Aphra whispered, finally breaking the silence, eyes red.
“Oh, you know. Fighting a war against an enemy that wants to kill you, me, and every sapient being in the galaxy. Trying to build an ancient alien superweapon.” Fighting the urge to kiss my ex-girlfriend.
“Nothing you can’t handle, then.” Another long, contemplative silence, then: “I could help. Join you on the Normandy again. I’m good with ancient alien tech, you know that.”
“We haven’t got any spare berths,” Tolvan deflected.
“I can share.” Aphra’s voice, thin and needy, finally slipped through Tolvan’s defenses. Damnit, she thought, and pulled Aphra down to kiss her.