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“Kolyat Krios! What were you thinking?”
The disappointment in his mother's voice was unmistakable. Even though he heard it in his dream — well, more like a nightmare — it was as real as if she had been in front of him. Scolding him like a child.
He had to be honest, at least with himself. With the way he acted recently, it was not like he'd done something to prove her wrong. What was he thinking, indeed? The shock of knowing not only that his father had been alive all that time, but also that he had…has always been a killer for hire was overwhelming. So overwhelming that, for a while, he had been torn between hating him even more and trying to get to know him better. That void Kolyat had always felt, he thought, would have probably never gone away. He couldn’t even remember what exactly made him choose that second option and to follow in his father’s steps as the best way to do it.
He was almost an adult, though, so he had to own his choice. Yes, it was the worst choice he could have made, but it eventually worked out well. In a very twisted way.
He didn’t kill anybody. The Blood Pack krogan bodyguard he shot survived — Kolyat will worry about the merc group hunting him for the rest of his life later. He wasn’t indicted for anything. He found out that his father was still alive. He saw his father. He talked to his father. Their conversation had been clouded by Kolyat’s anger and hurt, sure, but they talked. And they will again. Or so his father had promised. He had even been able to meet the famous Commander Shepard. She was the one to thank for most of what had happened that day, actually.
His father had said he was dying. From Kepral’s, no less. The curse of their people.
Some drell thought Kepral’s was the universe’s retort for only a handful of them being saved by the hanar a century ago. It was the reason why the drell had passively accepted to serve them ever since, in an endless guilt trip that had marked generation after generation. Survivors’ guilt at its finest, masked as a debt of gratitude.
Drell were masters of guilt. And his father, Kolyat reckoned, was probably among the best at it. Guilt was a double-edged sword, though, and Kolyat knew it well.
When Kolyat and Thane were sitting in the C-SEC interrogation room to ‘talk’, the former was as angry as the latter was ashamed. There was a lot to say, and it had been difficult at first. His father had tried to assuage Kolyat’s anger with what was currently his best weapon: the loathing Thane has always felt towards himself. At first, Kolyat couldn’t stand it. It was disgusting. It looked to him like it was only an easy way out of taking full responsibility. I suck, therefore I do what I do. I have no excuses but the fact that this is who I am.
After some back and forth, Kolyat asked Thane point-blank, “What stage is your Kepral’s?”
Thane had looked at him as still as a gantu tree’s leaves in winter.
“According to the doctors, I have entered stage three two months ago,” he had said. “Its progression is consistent with their knowledge of the syndrome.”
“So you’re still in time to seek treatment,” Kolyat had replied. He knew his father was smart enough to read between the lines.
There wasn’t a single drell in the galaxy who wasn’t aware of what the standard progression in Kepral’s syndrome was. So Kolyat knew that so little time into stage three meant there were still good possibilities of survival and that, thanks to his job, his father was still young, strong, and fit. Kolyat couldn’t help but appreciate the irony.
Thane had faltered slightly, opening his mouth immediately after Kolyat’s words, then closing it after a fraction of a second. He had inhaled, his breath still steady and strong from the outside. “I…I am. I have no reason to, though.”
Kolyat had crossed his arms on his chest, leaning backwards on the chair he was sitting in. “You have no reason to. Good to know,” he had replied, making sure the reproach was palpable in his voice.
“Kolyat, I—” he had started, but Kolyat had stopped him with a gesture of his hand.
“Don’t. Just…don’t. I don’t want to hear your excuses. You were dead to me before, and you’ll be again soon enough. Thinking of it, it doesn’t change much, does it?”
Except it did. And after leaving his father with a promise to keep in touch, he could only hope he’d realize that.
What Kolyat did two months later or so was to ask Bailey for Commander Shepard’s extranet address. His father had kept his word and wrote him often. Sometimes only a line or two; some other times, he had sent him long letters that Kolyat had enjoyed reading. He could see he was trying to make amends, but it would all be in vain if he died soon. To Kolyat’s great relief, the last time he had heard from him, Thane had informed Kolyat their ‘suicide mission’ had been successful, and they still had a couple of important missions to complete before he would’ve been able to join him on the Citadel.
So, before it was too late, Kolyat wrote to Shepard.
Commander,
I’m Kolyat Krios. You probably remember me. You have saved my life, and I’m standing here pleading with you to do it once more and save another’s. Convince my father to seek treatment. You were kind enough to help him find me. I believe you will also be kind enough not to let me lose him again.
Then, he waited.
==
Kolyat got a call from Huerta Memorial Hospital another five or six weeks later.
“Sere Krios, my name is Dr. Karin Chakwas, I’m—” said the velvety voice on the other side of the call before Kolyat interrupted her.
“Sere Krios is my father. Please, call me Kolyat,” he said, still puzzled about the reasons for this call.
“Very well. Kolyat, I’m the medical officer aboard the Normandy, the ship your father is currently ‘serving’ on. Commander Shepard asked me to get in contact with you about your father—” but Kolyat, in a surge of panic, interrupted here again.
“Arashu be merciful!” he exclaimed, his voice unable to hide the worry that was tightening his chest and making his heart race. “Is he alive?” he asked in a hurry.
Dr. Chakwas’s voice went from matter-of-fact to calming. “He is, Sere Kr…Kolyat. He’s alive. There has been an accident during our latest mission, and he got injured. Due to his current conditions, he required further medical assistance at Huerta, but he’s awake and stable. He asked for your presence at your earliest convenience. You will find him in room 14-P.”
Kolyat dropped everything and rushed out of the C-SEC office he’d been assigned to since after his little ‘escapade’. The trip from there to any other point on the Citadel had never been as slow. Even the elevator at Huerta seemed to have the impelling need to stop at every floor from zero to fourteen, although it looked to Kolyat as if no one were getting in or out. Kolyat’s impatience made him frantically punch the button each time the doors slid open and closed.
When the voice on the speakers finally announced the 14th floor, Kolyat sprinted out of the elevator, already out of breath. During the ride, he was surprised at how anxious he was. In the end, he hadn’t been on speaking terms with his father for that long since he had left him when Kolyat was a child. If someone had told him a year ago that the idea of losing his father again after only a couple of months since rekindling their relationship would have thrown him in such a state, he wouldn’t have believed them. Even more so, he wouldn’t have believed he would have seen his father again in the first place, let alone start to…care about him so easily.
Little by little, when he thought or saw his father, Kolyat had started not to think about the day his mother died. His anger had started to subside and leave space for the joy of having at least one of his parents still alive. For now. The fact that Thane Krios was about to die no matter what, and that Kolyat could do absolutely nothing about it, left a bitter taste lingering in his mouth.
Walking towards his father’s room, Kolyat didn’t know what to expect. Doctor Chakwas had only said that his father was ‘awake and stable’, but that could mean anything. He didn’t even know what had happened or what kinds of injuries his father had suffered.
When he was finally in front of the door to room 14-P, Kolyat didn’t hesitate to enter without announcing himself. The breath he had managed to steady immediately stopped at what he saw for just a second upon entering. He couldn’t believe his own eyes.
At his father’s bedside, Commander Shepard was leaning in, holding his hand. Thane was slightly turned towards her, with an oxygen mask on his face. It didn’t look like a friendly kind of holding hands. They looked…intimate.
As soon as they heard the door open and Kolyat step inside, they let their hands go and Shepard leaned back, straightening her back, a slight flush on her cheeks. Her posture had stiffened, and Kolyat could only guess she was embarrassed. His father, on the other hand, looked as composed as always, even despite his current situation.
“Kolyat,” Thane said softly, an invitation for the young drell to come closer rather than staying near the door was implicit in his voice.
“Father,” Kolyat replied, taking a tentative step towards the bed. “I got your message and I hurried. I didn’t know how serious your situation could be.”
As Kolyat was halfway between the door and his father’s bed, Shepard stood up from her chair.
“I should go,” she said hurriedly, and started leaving the room. Passing next to Kolyat, she raised her eyes to meet his, smiled quickly, and left. Kolyat heard the door hissing open and close behind him, and the noise felt like a breath. Inhale. Exhale.
The young drell walked towards the chair Shepard had just vacated and sat. He was about to ask his father about what he had just seen, but Thane talked first.
“How are you feeling?”
Kolyat looked at him, astounded. “Father, I’m the one supposed to ask you how you're feeling. I haven’t been injured!”
Thane gave him a hint of a smile. A rarity, Kolyat recalled. “There is nothing to worry about, Kolyat. I will spare you the details, but suffice it to know the treatments have already healed most of my recent injuries. I am no longer in danger.”
“I’m happy to hear it, Father. But there’s still the Kepral’s you need to worry about,” Kolyat said. He couldn’t leave the sorrow out of his voice. “You are still in danger.”
Thane looked away from Kolyat and turned his gaze towards the window. Outside, the weather was as perfect as always on the Citadel. The artificial climate systems took care of it. The young drell thought of Kahje and how it always rained there. Sometimes, he thought that crying there didn’t make a difference. The rain would wash away every single tear as if it were never shed. It wasn’t like that on the Citadel. Here, each one of them had a more profound meaning. It had its purpose. It was heard and seen and was meant to last in the memories of those around you. Kolyat wondered for a moment if his father felt the same way. Memories were not something drell considered a precious commodity. Most of the time, they were more like a curse, Kolyat thought.
“Kolyat, there is something—” Thane started to say, only to be stopped by a coughing fit. Kolyat stood up to go and call a doctor, but his father put a firm hand on his arm to tell him not to.
“You need help, Father!” Kolyat almost yelled.
Thane waved his free hand at him as the cough waned. The young drell took his father’s other hand into his and held it tight. Kolyat couldn’t believe that even now his father refused help.
With as deep a breath as Thane could take, he spoke again. “There is something I need to tell you, Kolyat.”
Kolyat opened his eyes wide. “Is this about what I saw when I came in?” he inquired.
Unfazed, his father replied, “It is not…only that, in truth.”
“Are you and Commander Shepard in love?” Kolyat felt a tinge of guilt for his bluntness, but ignored it. He felt entitled to know, regardless of whether his entitlement was misplaced or not.
His father lowered his head and looked at their hands pressed together. He smiled again.
“It is too soon to tell, Kolyat. However, yes, we deeply care for each other. It is pointless to hide it from you. I do not wish to repeat my past mistakes and hide anything from you, if I can help it.”
Kolyat sighed. “So what? You’re replacing Mother? Is that it?”
“You can love more than one in a lifetime, Kolyat,” his father said, giving his hand a light squeeze. “I have done many things I despise, including being the cause of your mother’s death. But ever since I have found you again, and ever since I have seen you welcoming me back into your life, I have realized that my life has a purpose again.” He paused and looked attentively at Kolyat before proceeding.
The young drell had many thoughts at his father’s confession, and even more questions. He wanted to have the strength to move on and let her mother’s subject drop, but shaken as he still was at seeing his father and Shepard holding hands, he couldn’t.
Kolyat failed to suppress the rising bitterness and shook his head. His father could say anything he wanted about not replacing his mother with someone new, but that was exactly what this looked like in Kolyat’s eyes.
“Do you still love her? Mother, I mean.”
“I will always love her. Not only for the person that she was, so fearless and intelligent, but especially because she gave me the greatest of gifts: you. The best days of my life I spent them with both of you.”
Kolyat tried not to stutter. “How can I believe you if all you did right after she died was leave me?” Kolyat asked.
He had thought the resentment was gone, but being in his father’s presence, seeing him opening to a new love no less, made him fear the possibility that, once things between the two of them were smoothed, he would leave him again. Kolyat didn’t exactly believe in being disconnected, being whole, and all those kinds of things, at least not like his father did. However, he couldn’t describe in any other way than ‘disconnected’ the ambivalent will to forever hold his father’s hand and the weakening in his own hand’s muscles that threatened Kolyat to be the first to let go.
Thane’s browplates furrowed. “I can only plead with you to believe I would never commit the same mistake again.”
Kolyat scoffed. “I almost wish you had enough time to make that promise real.” A deep pain tightened his chest as soon as he uttered the words.
His father let go of Kolyat’s hand. The young drell feared that he had angered him once and for all. Instead, Thane stirred and sat up in his bed. He took off the oxygen mask and looked at him with such an intense gaze that Kolyat felt like his father was digging a hole in his soul.
“I have decided to seek treatment for Kepral’s, Kolyat. It will be my first true act towards making that promise a reality. An act beyond mere words, as those I offered until now.”
Kolyat’s breath stopped. His heart skipped…how many beats? He had thought that convincing him to try and treat Kepral’s was beyond hopeless, so he hadn’t brought up the subject more than twice in their messages these last few months.
His father continued. “It is not a definitive cure. Kepral's may come back at any moment, but it will at least give me some more time. It is all I can ask for, to live and make new memories with you. It is more than I deserve.”
“You deserve that, Father, and even more!” Kolyat said, exasperated. “It’s unbelievable how you can deliver the best of news and then crush it a second later with a guilt that has no sense to exist anymore. The only good thing you can do with it now is to use it to do everything in your power to never build up on it again.” He felt short of breath. “Haven’t you paid enough for your mistakes?”
Thane was taken aback by Kolyat’s words. The young drell saw him sifting, tears pooling in his eyes. If he had hurt him, he wouldn’t apologize.
“You are so much like your mother, Kolyat. Fearless, intelligent, with a great heart. I know you speak the truth, but it will still take me time to acknowledge it.”
His father’s words made Kolyat’s heart swell with affection. Towards Thane, towards Irikah. The thought of the future they could’ve had together hurt a little less. Although his aunts and uncles had always said that they saw his mother Irikah in him, hearing it from his father had a greater power. His father had loved her, cherished her, and did little to make Kolyat believe it wasn’t true anymore. The pride in Thane’s voice was tangible.
“Now we will have time to make it come true.”