Chapter Text

Siha.

Commander Kalissa Shepard rolled the word over in her mind as the elevator made the long, upward climb to her personal quarters.

Siha.

How many times had she heard that word in the past few months? Dozens, probably, and yet she never remembered to ask what it meant. It was an oversight on her part. An oversight that she was currently regretting.

An oversight that she could easily remedy.

By the time that the elevator's door hissed open to revel the short corridor that lead to her personal quarters, Kalissa had made her decision: it was time to see if a certain meddler felt like talking.

Determined steps led the Commander from the lift and into her cabin where she immediately sat down at her desk, folding her hands before her face and resting her elbows upon its smooth surface. The position was nearly identical to the one that Thane seemed to favor for his meditations, but that wasn't surprising considering who she was waiting for.

It wasn't a very long wait.

Within moments of her arrival, the soft sounds of her fish tank faded away, the light breeze caused by her cabin's life support systems stopped, and the stars that made up the world beyond her skylight ceased their motions. Time was standing still for the rest of the universe.

As Kalissa studied the now motionless stars outside of the glass window in her cabin’s ceiling, her newly arrived visitor asked a simple question: "Do you truly want me to tell you what it means?"

The query made the Normandy's Commander turned around to face her guest and bright-green, human eyes met the sea-green ones of a drell. When that happened, the words that Kalissa had been about to say died on her lips, stolen away by a memory of a deep voice and another set of green, drell eyes.

Someday, I'll tell you what it means.

He'd promised and she knew that he'd keep that promise. Searching out the answer from another, even the one who'd first given her the title, suddenly seemed like a betrayal of his trust.

She'd wait.

Even as Kalissa whispered the words, "Never mind," she knew that a part of her, the part that always wanted to know everything, was going to regret this.

She'd made her choice, though, and goddesses? They don’t let you change your mind.