Chapter Text
Aria hesitates for all of one second, holding herself perfectly still on the knife’s-edge precipice between life and, presumably, death. She closes her eyes and takes a steadying breath. I died months ago, she reminds herself, and with that, every other thought fades out. Opening her eyes and her arms, she tips her center of gravity forward.
Her body follows.
The world doesn’t fade to white, rushing past in a thousand colors instead. Images flicker by too quickly for her mind to process them. She’s left with impressions - quarians and geth gathered together, turians cheering, the Citadel Armed Forces setting their weapons down for the last time, Wrex and Bakara standing over a crowd of krogan. The dizzying rush slows just enough for Aria to take in the sight of her crewmates on the Normandy waiting anxiously for a return she won’t be making, and then it slows further, focusing on individual faces. Anderson. Legion. Mordin.
Thane.
The tears Aria has been choking down all this time gather at the corners of her eyes, and her lips curve into a smile. Thane. She’s going to see him again.
“I’m coming,” she tries to say, though she can’t hear her voice in the space around her. Maybe she’s dying, or maybe her body has perished already, leaving her mind alive for a few more beats. “I’m coming, Thane.”
His crystal-clear image fades to black, leaving Aria wanting to reach out and bring it back somehow. She struggles, chasing the picture, and her feet hit the ground with a lurch. Her head spins; all she can do for a long moment is focus on staying still while the vertigo subsides. Only then does she have a chance to take in her surroundings.
Sand, sun, and water greet her.
The Sea. She knows it intuitively, in the same way she’d always known the versions of Thane she saw in her dreams to be figments of her imagination. Aria takes a halting step forward, expecting the world to drop out beneath her as her fading consciousness is lost forever, but all that happens is that the scenery sharpens into focus. She can feel the sun on her skin - really feel it, not the fuzzy almost-feeling sensation her mind comes up with in dreams. When she bends down to touch the water of the lapping waves, it cools her fingertips. The air tastes salty.
Overhead, the sky is almost completely clear, broken up only by a few clouds drifting along. Aria takes a deep breath and exhales slowly, surprised that her body still obeys her commands. She may be dead - she must be, to find herself here - but she still moves like a living being. Her heart calms down in her chest. She puts her hand over it and counts out its beats, reassuring herself that this is really happening.
The second she banishes the doubt and accepts her reality, a single thought shocks through her like a lightning bolt. If this is the Sea, Thane is here. She whips her head about in search of him and catches a flash of green on the edge of her vision.
Aria’s body reacts on its own. She takes off running toward him, the tears from before sliding down her cheeks as she tries to push past the lump in her throat to call his name. He spots her when she’s halfway down the beach, and in a flash, he’s on his feet, opening his arms and waiting for her, just like he’d promised. Aria chokes on a sob and throws herself into his embrace, letting him catch her and spin her around, clinging to him like the world might rip them apart one more time yet. Thane sets her back down without letting go.
“Siha,” he murmurs close to her ear.
“ Thane ,” she says, her voice cracked like she hasn’t let it be for what feels like a lifetime. She leans back to take him in; he meets her gaze, his expression soft. Aria kisses him, and he slides one hand into her hair, holding her close as he kisses back.
“I’ve missed you,” Aria says when they break their kiss. “I… I missed you so badly. I’m…” Her voice fails her as she runs her eyes over his eyes, his nose, his lips, his frills. He’s real. He’s with her. That fact alone steals the words from her mouth.
“I’m with you.” He runs his hand along the back of her head, coming to rest on the nape of her neck.
Tears spill down Aria’s cheeks. She leans forward to rest her head on his shoulder - she’s overwhelmed beyond words, and all she wants is to hold him and be held by him. Thane rubs soothing circles into her back with his free hand.
“I’m sorry,” he says softly. Aria tightens her grip, and he chuckles. “I know it isn’t what you want me to say, but I truly am sorry.”
“I know,” she manages to get out between sobs.
They stand in silence, swaying gently with the breeze, until Aria convinces herself to stop crying. The weight of the world has lifted off her shoulders, and she isn’t quite sure what to do with herself. There’s a hundred things she wants to say to Thane, and at the same time, she wants to stay with him without saying one word. Instead of choosing either option, she pulls him into another kiss that he immediately returns.
“I’m sorry too.” She looks him right in the eye as she says it. “You asked me to go on living, and I tried, I really did. But this was the only way to save everyone.”
“The world is cruel, to demand so much sacrifice from you.”
His statement catches Aria by surprise, and she frowns. “From me? I’m not the only one who gave up their… life. You, Legion, Mordin, Anderson, all of you beat me to it.”
“Of course,” says Thane, “but none of us were put into the same situation as you.”
“It wasn’t a decision, not really,” Aria says. “Destroy all the geth, and EDI? There’s no way I could do that. And to live forever, controlling all the Reapers, with no guarantee that I’d still be me, that nothing could corrupt me or make me turn on organics? That’s not an option either. All I did was pick the only course of action I could pick.”
For a long moment, Thane doesn’t respond. He just looks at her, taking her in, and she allows herself to bask in the feeling of having his full focus on her.
“All the same,” he finally says. “The gods must have seen fit to test you. I only wish their trials could have been kinder to you.”
“It’s not so bad.” Aria rests their foreheads together. “I get to be with you again, and we can enjoy the shores here for… at least a while? That’s more than I was hoping for when I made my choice.”
They lapse into a comfortable silence, Aria’s shoulders still shaking with all the feelings that are surging to the surface. She keeps her eyes on Thane. He touches her face with reverence, like she’s something holy and precious and not… Aria chews her lip.
A thought occurs to her suddenly. “What about Irikah? Is she here? Can I meet her?”
Thane laughs, his chest vibrating with the warmth of it, and Aria feels a rush of affection for him. He kisses her again, and she melts in his arms. They hold each other without saying a word for another long moment until he pulls away.
“Yes, she’s here, and she wishes to meet you as well.”
“She’s not angry about us, is she?”
“No. Curious, certainly, but not angry in the slightest.”
Aria sighs in relief, and puts her head back on Thane’s shoulder, closing her eyes and breathing deeply. This is a kinder fate than any she’d imagined herself heading toward, no matter what Thane may say about trials set for her by the gods. She’s been allowed onto Kalahira’s shores despite having only learned about Her so recently, and she’s been reunited with the love of her life. Now she’s even going to meet his wife and see her sunset eyes for herself.
It feels too good to be true, but Aria doesn’t care. If this is a last-ditch hallucination created by her mind to ease the pain of dying, she’s alright with that.
Thane takes her hand in his, and she lets him lead her along the shore, toward a cozy little beach hut. The shade of the thatched roof awning is a relief from the hot sun. He knocks on the door, then pushes it open.
Inside, the hut is refreshingly cool, its wide shaded windows letting in the breeze but not the sun. A large wooden desk is set against the far wall, and it’s covered in neatly organized stacks of notes. Another smaller desk is covered in equipment she doesn’t recognize. There’s a couch, a pair of armchairs, and a little coffee table with two empty cups on it.
“You must’ve hated my piles of books,” Aria comments lightly, nodding toward the papers. Thane raises an eyebrow.
“Not at all. These are Irikah’s.”
Aria feels the sudden urge to read all of Irikah’s notes, to learn as much as she can about the other woman before meeting her so she’s fully prepared. She shakes her head. This isn’t a mission - she doesn’t need a dossier to meet her partner’s wife.
They head back outside, and Thane circles the hut to look for Irikah while Aria waits in the shade. She stares out at the horizon.
Blue sky, blue sea, white sand. It’s like a postcard. She feels immense relief, as well as an uncomfortable tug at the back of her mind, like a hook that’s snagged on the corner of her consciousness. A shiver runs up her spine despite the heat. She steps closer to the surf to distract herself from the unpleasant feeling.
The water laps calmly at the shore, its rhythmic pulse soothing her frayed nerves. Aria watches it for a few long moments, finding herself moving closer as if by someone else’s command.
The water touches her feet. It’s cool, and comfortable.
The water pushes a little shell up beside her feet. She bends to pick it up, fumbling when the next wave rolls in, this one rising to her ankles. Aria turns the pinkish shell over in her hands.
When she looks back up, the water has reached her knees.
Aria turns back to the shore and starts wading, but the water keeps rising. She tries her best to ignore the panic that’s rising faster than the waves; the closer she gets to the place where the water should stop, the harder it fights her, pulling her back in a powerful surge until she’s submerged up to her waist. Gritting her teeth, Aria throws herself forward, making for the shore-
-and the water tugs her backward with the force of twenty husks. She barely manages to stay on her feet as it tries to yank her away from the shore altogether, more powerful than any riptide she’s ever experienced. The back of Aria’s neck prickles in warning.
“Thane!” she cries out, reaching out with one hand even as her other is dragged under the water. He comes running toward her, but the sinking feeling in her stomach tells her it’s too late.
“Siha!” he calls. Someone else is beside him - Irikah? Aria can barely spare her a glance with how hard she’s fighting the water. Cold dread grips her lungs and she pushes, shoves against the force of the ocean with all she has. She’s got no idea what might happen if the tide pulls her under, but somehow she knows it can’t, or she might never come back here.
“Thane, no, I can’t do this without you again, please-! ” she screams.
The salty water climbs up her throat, and she keeps one hand free with all her might. Thane’s hand closes around hers, and she stares up into his face, her own deep fear mirrored in his features. This can’t be it, it can’t, she fought so hard to get here, she can’t be saying goodbye to him again, not like this, not now-
“I love you,” Thane says, and Aria feels the tide renew its efforts to rip her away from him. She takes a deep breath before it can.
“I love you too! I’ll find my way back to you, I promise!”
Then her hand slips from his, and the ocean claims her, blurring the world to white.