Standard disclaimer: None of the characters, places, etc. in this story are mine, but are instead the property of Bioware. No copyright infringement is intended by their use in this story.

Author's notes: Not much to say about this one. Part of its genesis lay in Samara's line of unique dialogue on Omega when she mentioned that when Shepard's quest was done, she might come back here to clean the station up; it occurred to me that Aria probably wouldn't like that. The other part lay in the Patriarch sidequest, where if you take the Paragon option, you offer to act as Patriarch's krantt in taking care of the guys who wanted him dead. It occurred to me that realistically, in doing that, Shepard was making a promise she had no intention of keeping—she and her crew were not going to hang around Omega Station acting as Patriarch's enforcers, for any number of reasons. So while Patriarch might receive a slight, passing boost from her actions, it was not going to be a long-term thing and, realistically, the status quo would almost certainly reassert itself once she had left.

I like Samara a lot, and I thought that her scenes would be easy to write, but when it came to it I had real difficulty handling them and I'm not happy with what I came up with. I hope I did her justice.

This one is unbetaed—my usual beta was on vacation and wouldn't have been able to get to it for several weeks. While I always appreciate her thoughtful comments and help on my fics, I really wanted to get this one up so I could "clear the decks" for the original fic I'm trying to revise. So it may be kind of rough around the edges. Sorry about that.

"An asari justicar? Here?" Patriarch sat forward on the varren-leather seat. It was whispered that Aria T'Loak had her sofas covered with the skins of her enemies, but what was said wasn't always true. Well, Patriarch mused, except for that one time….

"Yes." Aria stood up, and began to pace the balcony restlessly. Her lieutenants watched from the sidelines, silent and waiting. Aria ignored them. "She just got in yesterday. And she's coming after me."

"Wait," said Patriarch, his mind working rapidly. "This is the one that came through a while back with Shepard, isn't she? Samara, she was called. Are you sure she's not just passing through like last time? Remember, last time she was just here for that Ardat-Yagi, or whatever your people call them—"

"Yes, I'm sure," Aria snapped at him. "Shepard isn't with her anymore. She's on her own." She ran one hand over her eyes. "She issued a formal challenge to me. To me! Stepped onto the station and announced to everyone that she was here to bring Omega to balance. Said that she was giving me three days to get my affairs in order and get off the station, and after that—" Aria broke off, staring out over the railing. "After that, if I hadn't left by then, I would be declared anathema under the Code. That she would come for me, and that she wouldn't stop until one of us was dead. 'And if I fall, know this,'" she recited, "'that others will come in my place. Until the Code is satisfied.' Goddess." She rubbed at her eyes briefly. "I thought that was only stories, I didn't think justicars actually did things like that."

"We krogan have our own stories," Patriarch murmured. If she had been anyone else—anything else—he would have thought that this Samara was stupid or insane to tip her hand like that….but a justicar… That would be a battle to see, he mused, studying the slim form of Aria before him. She paced again, with short, trapped steps. Suddenly it hit him: She's actually afraid. He hadn't seen Aria T'Loak afraid in…well, ever.

"What are the asari justicars, exactly?" he asked.

She took up a bottle of asari wine and poured herself a glass, stared at it, then tossed it aside and took a gulp right from the bottle. "They're holy warriors. Not subject to the dictates of asari society, they follow a higher law—their Code. Codified over millennia and passed down from generation to generation, it dictates a justicar's actions in any conceivable situation. I guess the closest analogue outside of asari culture would be one of the knights-errant from medieval European Earth, if that means anything to you." Aria shivered. "Goddess," she repeated again. She closed her hands on the rail and stared out over the crowded floor of Afterlife. "There aren't very many of them, relatively speaking, and usually they don't leave asari space. I never thought I'd find one out here. What am I going to do?"

Patriarch was silent for a long time, thinking. "Aria," he said at last, "I've been your…advisor…for near on two centuries. My advice for you now—Run."

"What?" Aria whirled around to stare at him with anger in her eyes.

"You heard me, girl. Now's the time to run." He faced her seriously. "Krogan memory is pretty damn long, Aria. Almost as long as that of you asari. We krogan remember…." He paused, putting his thoughts in order. "We have a story about one justicar—one—from the time of the Krogan Rebellions."

"Yes?" Aria asked. She had turned toward him and was giving him her full attention, hanging on his every word. Patriarch took a moment to relish the sensation of power. Closest I get to actually having power these days. He leaned back against the leather sofa, stretching his feet out in front of him.

"The name that my father told me was Ilea, but I don't know if that's the right one. It was kind of a situation like with Samara earlier, actually: she was on a quest of some kind, don't know what. She'd been ignoring the war entirely until her quest took her outside of asari space. Even then she wouldn't have fought, except that she happened to trip over the lead elements of one of our strike forces along the way, out in the Hourglass Nebula. When she saw us doing what we krogan do best," he added with a twisted smirk, "she stopped long enough to issue a challenge to the krogan general. Rungor Vraen. He laughed in her face. Big mistake." The smirk stretched into something more painful; this story was a little too close to home, now that he thought about it. "That lone justicar managed to single-handedly destroy three whole divisions. The entire Fifth Army was wiped out. It took dropping a moon on top of her to stop her, and even then her body was never found."

Aria raised her hands to cover her face. "It didn't stop her," she said from behind that shield. "We have legends of her too. Ilea left your army behind because her quarry moved on." Aria smiled bitterly. "All our legends ever said about Justicar Ilea was that she left asari space seeking her prey, the Dark Matriarch Thamiris; spent some time outside, and then returned to run her prey to ground. The final battle between them devastated an entire continent, and ended in both their deaths. And now, one of them is here, on Omega, and she's after me." She wrapped her arms around herself. "As the humans would say, oh shit."

Aria turned away to stare out over the balcony again. Patriarch picked up a clam from the bowl at his side and placed it between the rows of his sharp, conical teeth, shattering it with a crunch. To his not-inexperienced eye, Aria looked like she was on the verge of seriously losing it. Once, he would have have taken a bitter joy in such a sight, but that had been long ago; now, the best he could manage was a sort of mild, detached pity. Looks like you're in over your head this time, eh, girl? "Sounds like it really isn't about you personally," he offered. "She just wants to clean up Omega. Frankly, it could use it," he added, enjoying the foul look she gave him. "So, let her. Pack up, hand over the station to her, go somewhere else. Start again. You're young, you've got centuries left. Plenty of time. Go somewhere else and you'll be fine."

"Are you insane?" Aria demanded. "Leave Omega? I am Omega!" She raised her arms. "I built this station from the ground up—"

"No, I did that," he interjected with some acerbicity. "I built it, and you took it from me. Keep your history straight, girl."

Aria ignored him. She clenched her hands around the balcony railing so tightly that her knuckles showed white. "I won't lose this station. I can't lose this station."

"Then you're going to lose your life," Patriarch told her bluntly. "One or the other. Can't have both."

She whirled on him again, striking him with an angry glare. "Oh, you'd like that, wouldn't you?" she hissed. "Me getting killed by one of Shepard's gang, a member of your so-called krantt?" Aria sneered the word. "I see. You're hoping she'll get rid of me and set you up in my place again. You actually believe that would happen?" Her sneer deepened. "Get real. Shepard and her gang never cared about you. They never wanted to fight beside you, shed blood with you. Did Shepard ask you to join her crew? Well, did she?" He was silent. "Didn't think so. The only reason they were helping you at all was because I asked them to. Everything you have comes from me, and don't you forget it."

Patriarch's claws dug into the arm of the sofa, hard, but he did not respond. Aria had said worse to him before. Krogan skin was thick enough to absorb a few barbs…or so he thought.

She's really getting worked up though….

"Look at you," Aria sneered. "Who would want to fight beside you anymore, anyway? You're nothing more than a worn-out, pathetic, weak, broken-down old shell!" Her voice was rising; heads were starting to turn all the way on the other side of the club. "You're not even a krogan anymore—"

Patriarch could feel his breath beginning to come hard. Blood was pounding in his head. The thought crossed his mind dimly that making a scene like this wasn't helping Aria's reputation any, either. He could feel his claws pierce the leather covering of the sofa on which he sat. A red mist began to swim before his eyes, and images of his talons closing around her soft, weak throat filled his mind; the blood rage was not far off now. "Aria, stop it," he said through his teeth. "I'm warning you…."

She tilted her head to one side, then with lowered voice and a vicious smile, delivered the final blow. "Why in the world," she asked venomously, "would a galactic hero like Shepard want to fight alongside someone like you?"

The words went into him like cold steel sliding between his hearts. His rising anger collapsed. Aria had ripped it away from him, just as she had taken everything else. His shoulders slumped and his head bowed. He could only sit there, hearing the breath whoosh in and out of his lungs, feeling shaky. Weak. All the things she had said he was. She had defeated him without lifting a finger, without a blow being struck. Aria studied him a moment longer; then that razor smile softened into one of approval. She turned and spoke to the small crowd of onlookers, her advisors and captains.

"We're staying," she announced grandly. "This is our station, and if that justicar wants it, then she'll have to fight us for it. And I don't think she can win." One hand dropped to the top of his crest, stroking him as if he were no more than a varren. Patriarch allowed it silently. He felt empty inside. Aria strode off, her lieutenants around her, leaving him behind. Worn out and useless.

[*]

It took him a while to pull himself back together—much longer than it usually did after one of Aria's little tongue-lashings. He hadn't realized until then just how much he had treasured the idea of being part of a krantt again. And not just any krantt either—Shepard's krantt. Everyone in the galaxy knew who Shepard was: the human hero who had singlehandedly defeated the geth, who had killed the rogue Spectre Saren, smashed the Council, and upended the entire galactic order in the space of an afternoon. It seemed like new tales of Shepard's great deeds poured in by the day. They said she'd done the Rite, on behalf of a crew member of hers, and actually killed the thresher maw; when his time had come, he'd barely survived it. And best of all, Shepard was a female, even if a human. That such a one might actually want him—might find him worthy, after all this time, to fight alongside: to go out to the battlefield together, water the ground with the blood of their enemies, then return to the camps to drink and boast of their great deeds—was intoxicating. It was almost as sweet as battle itself.

Ah well. Too good to be true. Aria was right, of course. Why would a hero like Shepard want someone like him? After all, she hadn't asked him to join her crew, though she'd snatched up Archangel from the jaws of death, and even whisked that salarian doctor off from his clinic in the slums to ride the stars with her, daring peril and danger in pursuit of glory. She already has a krogan, so they say—a real krogan, not a broken-down wreck like me. A dull bitterness burned in his hearts.

He retreated to the quarters Aria had given him for the rest of the afternoon, with a bottle or two of ryncol for fortification. By the early evening, he felt steady enough to go out again, and he set forth, in search of the justicar. Broken-down wreck or not, he was still Aria's Patriarch, dammit, and he knew his duties well. If he could convince her to leave the station peaceably, it would be better for everyone. And besides…well, he'd never met a justicar before. I wonder, what is it about her that can cause such fear in Aria's heart?

A couple of discreet queries located this justicar for him: she had taken over an abandoned warehouse in the Lower Market district. The place was in one of the worst sectors of Omega, but Patriarch wasn't worried about that; after all, he was still a krogan, wasn't he? Day I can't handle a few vorcha and batarians by myself is the day I just go ahead and get that damn leash and collar, after all. And besides—his jaw tightened at the thought—Aria's favor protected him.

The warehouse looked deserted when he got there: the door was closed and red-locked. He rang the entrance chime a few times, wondering why this district was so empty; normally the area would be swarming with vorcha, but he hadn't seen more than a handful since he'd gotten in. It almost looked like a set-up for an ambush, except that the feeling was wrong, somehow.

Well, whatever's going on, it's damn creepy. The silence weighed on his nerves. The shadows seemed to cluster thickly in the corners; it felt like he was being watched, but Patriarch hadn't spotted anyone, and his skills were still good enough for that, anyway. I hope.

Finally, after several minutes of chiming with no response, Patriarch activated his omnitool. Aria had given him a keycode some time ago that could open every door on the station. Well—almost every door, that is. He tapped it in, and as the door rolled aside, he peered into the vast interior of the warehouse.

"Hello?" he called out. No response. Cautiously, he took a step forward, then another and another, moving deeper into the gloomy, echoing interior. The door rolled shut behind him with a bang, and he actually started.

Goddamn it. Get ahold of yourself, he snarled. You're jumping at everything like a plateless salarian. He muttered a curse between his teeth. All his senses were firing, warning him to be alert, that he was not alone, but the maddening thing was, he couldn't see anyone. He continued forward, another step, then another, advancing through piles of empty crates and boxes that bulked in the dark. Aria wouldn't let him have any weapons heavier than a simple knife—"What need do you have of weapons?" she'd said with that edged smile when he asked. "I've given you all the protection you'll ever need." Now he put his hand on the knife hilt, cursing her in the back of his mind.

"Hello?" he called out again, his words echoing in the cavernous space. "I'm the Patriarch. Aria's Patriarch. I came down to see you. Thought we could have a little chat. About what's best for this station, best for Aria. Best for you, even. See if we can find a way to make us all happy." He paused. There was no answer. The air cyclers whispered quietly in the far corners of the warehouse. "Hello? Is anyone—"

He broke off as motion caught his eye. It was a mere flicker—perhaps nothing more than an indrawn breath—but it was enough; his wide-set eyes focused, and he began to make out the outlines of a dim asari form at the back of the warehouse, where the darkness was deepest. She was sitting facing the wall with her back to him, so still that for a moment he wondered if she were actually alive; but then his eyes picked up the very faint biotic glow surrounding her. She showed no sign of acknowledging his presence.

She doesn't know I'm here. He couldn't believe it. Perhaps, Patriarch mused, she was so lost in whatever she was doing with her biotics that she had taken no notice of him. Carefully, he drew nearer to her, his eyes fixed on her open and unprotected back. His talons clicked on the hilt of the knife at his hip. The thought crossed his mind that if he were quick and sure, he might be able to end this now and save them all some grief….

As fluidly as water, Samara unfurled, rising to her feet and turning to face him all in one smooth motion. "Patriarch."

She was tall, perhaps as tall as he was, and pale blue in color. Her face had a strong bone structure that managed to be fine without being delicate. Her eyes were pale blue as well, almost to the point of being white—the mark of a pureblood, Patriarch knew, and was surprised that a pureblood had managed to attain such an exalted position as that of a justicar. Like Aria, she was trim and leanly muscled, with a dancer's lithe grace, but the similarities to Aria ended there. Whereas Aria oozed a dark, lurid danger, shot through with lodes of raw sensuality, there was none of that in Samara.

Oh, the danger was there all right, but it was somehow different in kind. Samara was as perfectly balanced as a porcelain sculpture, yet with none of such a sculpture's fragility; there was that about her which would neither bend nor break. The dominant impression Patriarch received in those first few moments was one of almost unfathomable power, and above all force of will, kept ruthlessly in check by an absolute and unforgiving self-restraint. If Aria was a dagger this one was a rapier: slender, elegant, and limitlessly deadly.

The force of her presence was so strong that Patriarch actually found himself staggering backward as if she had pushed him, and he thought:

Aria. Oh, Aria, girl. This one is far out of your league….

After a heartbeat, he collected himself. "You…knew I was here all along?"

"Of course." Her voice was light, cool, precise. "You had hardly made an attempt to keep your presence secret. I apologize for not responding to you earlier, but I was meditating. I am loathe to interrupt my meditations before it is absolutely necessary." She paused, and then inclined her head. "I am Justicar Samara."

"And I'm the Patriarch," he repeated, unnecessarily. Samara studied him.

"The Patriarch. Shepard spoke to me of you." Pale blue eyes regarded him. "She had a great deal of respect for you."

"Not enough respect, apparently," Patriarch said with some bitterness. "But, that's neither here nor there. I came on behalf of Aria—"

"Aria T'Loak. Yes." Samara inclined her head. "You may tell her that my challenge remains in force. She now has two and a half days remaining to leave this station. At the end of that time, if she is still here, I will come for her."

"Yes, Aria knows about the challenge," Patriarch answered, "but that's not what I came to talk about. I'm here to talk about terms."

One brow lifted. "Terms?"

"Yes. Terms." Patriarch shifted from foot to foot. "Mind if I sit down? Not as young as I used to be. Age catches up even to krogan, you know."

Her pale lips curved with a trace of humor, startling him. "And to asari. Please."

He slowly and painfully levered his way down to the floor. Samara joined him, flowing down to a seated position. Patriarch observed this with some curiosity.

"Are asari legs supposed to bend that way?" he couldn't help asking.

"The yil-flower position enhances the flow of biotic energy throughout the body." Again, her lips curved slightly. "It does take some getting used to."

"Still looks like it hurts." Patriarch settled back on his tail, leaning his hump against some boxes behind him. "Must admit, I didn't have much trouble on the way in. This sector is usually crawling with vorcha."

Samara nodded. "Several vorcha packs attacked the warehouse the first night I moved in. I made an example of them. The message seems to have gone out; I haven't been troubled since."

"Oh." Patriarch engrossed himself in cleaning his talons, surreptitiously studying her. Did she just say she singlehandedly killed multiple packs of vorcha? If Aria had said something like that, it would have been tinged with subtle, but unmistakable threat; but Samara had spoken as a simple statement of fact. He yearned to pry further, but decided to let it pass, though he filed the information away to pass on to Aria. Instead he turned to the purpose of his visit. He sat forward, lacing his talons together before him.

"Look here," he told her. "We're all creatures of the world, wouldn't you agree? Krogan and asari---we're two of the longest-lived races in the galaxy. We have a natural kinship that way—we share perspective the shorter-lived species don't. Surely you, me and Aria can put our heads together and come up with a deal that's fair to both sides."

Samara regarded him. "Did Aria send you?"

"Well….technically, no," he was forced to admit. "But I've known Aria a long time. On certain matters, she trusts me to act for her."

She nodded. "I thought as much. An asari would know better than to try and bribe a justicar. The challenge stands. Aria T'Loak must leave or die within two and a half days."

"I'm not offering you a bribe," Patriarch said with a trace of exasperation. "All I'm trying to do is work out an arrangement. Tell me what you're after and I'll see if I can't get it for you. I have some pull with the girl, and if it's not too outrageous, I'm sure I can get her to go along with it. Surely you must agree that it would be better to avoid an incredibly destructive fight if at all possible. Because I'll tell you this: if you do fight her, one of you is going to die, and I wouldn't lay odds on it being Aria. The girl is strong—believe me, I know," he said with old bitterness.

He paused, waiting for her reaction. Samara was silent for a long time, her pale eyes studying him. He wondered if she were going to take the deal, but when she spoke, her words surprised him. "It was…not well done of her…to call you Patriarch," she murmured. "She thought to demean you and did not see that she demeaned only herself. But you have taken the title she gave you in scorn and made it something noble, simply by being as you are. No," she said firmly. "There is nothing I will accept from you. The challenge stands."

"I—but—" Patriarch groped to recover himself, taken aback by her unexpected words. "Look here, there must be something," he finally came up with. "All right, perhaps not credits or equipment, but something. Look, you have to understand," he told her. "Aria is this station. In her own way, she loves it, as much as she can love…well, anything. Ever since she took it from me…. I know the girl well enough to know she'll never leave Omega while she still has breath. But she can give you—"

"The kinds of things that might sway me are not the kinds of things that Aria T'Loak has to offer. Indeed," Samara added, "from what I have seen, her presence is actively inimical to them."

"What kinds of things do interest you?" Patriarch found himself asking.

"Peace. Justice. Order. Fairness. The rule of law. All things that are in short supply on Omega."

"No argument there," Patriarch grunted. He was silent for a time, thinking. At last he looked back at her. "You truly intend to fight Aria?"

"If she will not leave—"

"She won't."

"—then I intend to kill her." One brow went up.

He grunted again, shifting a bit. "She won't go down as easy as all that, you know."

Pale eyes regarded him, across the gulf of centuries. "Know this: I have fought many, many others like her. I do not fear the outcome."

Something about the way she said sent a shiver down his spine. She sounds like she really means it. He paused, collecting himself. "Nothing I can say to change your mind, then?"

"There is not. Although it is a credit to you that you attempted it." She paused. "I respect your effort, Patriarch, but I am sorry to tell you that there was no chance I would ever accept your offer. The challenge stands. Aria T'Loak has three days to leave the station; after that, she dies."

"Huh." Patriarch cast around for something else he might say to her, but came up blank. This justicar was so different from anyone he had ever known that he hadn't even the slightest idea where to start; though it was axiomatic that everyone had a price, he suspected that Samara was correct when she said hers was not something Aria could pay. Can't say I haven't tried, he thought with a shrug.

"Well, thanks anyway, for taking the time to listen to a battered old wreck like me," he said gruffly. With a groan, he levered himself to his feet again. "I'll go back to Aria. Tell her what you said. I'll warn you though—she's not going to like it. Might even send assassins after you—"

He broke off as the slight smile touched Samara's lips again. In an undertone, she murmured, "She already has."

"I—what—" Patriarch began, then broke off as Samara glanced meaningfully upward. Following her eyes, he saw a catwalk suspended high above the warehouse floor, almost invisible in the gloom. He stared at it, hard, and had just time to make out a flicker of movement along the iron railings before a bright biotic glow flared out around Samara. A glowing sphere shot from her hand to impact with the railings, and the catwalk snapped like string. Three humanoid forms came spilling off it, to crash into the ground not ten yards away from them with such force that Patriarch could hear their bones snapping. The three forms, two batarians and a turian, lay still with the stillness of death.

"I—That's Ran Jako's team," he said. "Some of Aria's best. How did you—" He looked up at her, more than a little impressed.

"I have had centuries to learn to detect stealth," Samara said calmly. "I was aware of them the moment they entered the building. I am sorry if they were friends of yours—"

"Hell, no," Patriarch snorted. "They were thugs and rabble, as almost all of Aria's crew are. I never said it, you understand, but the world's better off without them." He allowed himself a moment of sour enjoyment, imagining Aria's likely reaction to discovering the fate of her assassination team, then looked from the bodies to Samara again. "You didn't feel like taking care of it until now?

"They were not a threat till now. All things are to be dealt with in their proper time. And besides…I was enjoying talking with you, and didn't want to spoil it." She gave that slight smile again.

"Well, anyway, I should go. Can't wait to get back to Aria and tell her what happened to her team," he added with a sideways grin of his own. "She's really going to be coming for you now, though. Don't say I didn't warn you."

As he turned to go, Samara called out to him again. "Patriarch." He looked back. "Why do you stay with her?"

Why indeed… The answer to that question had once been complex; but Patriarch had been considering it for so long that, somehow, over the decades, it had become simple. He looked from the bodies on the floor to the poised form of Samara, and sighed. "Aaaah…Aria and I have been together a long time. You might say, our history's a bit like a thresher maw's tongue: long, messy, and you don't want to get too personal with it. The end of it all is, I can't leave the girl. She needs me." He shrugged. "Call it part of being a krogan, if you want—we have a weakness for strong females."

Samara nodded. "You are loyal. I respect that. Loyalty is a noble quality. But on its own, it is never enough. You must always consider: what is the nature of that to which you are loyal?" She regarded him. "I sincerely hope I do not have to kill you, Patriarch."

"I hope so too," he said, and took his leave.

[*]

When Patriarch got back to Afterlife, the usual line of people outside waiting to get in was absent. It wasn't hard to figure out why, either: Aria's voice, raised in anger, could be heard all the way in the corridor outside the club. Patriarch grimaced at the sound of it. Damn. Wonder how long she's been at it…

The club itself was almost deserted; about the only sentients in evidence were the bartenders, huddled behind the bar looking nervous. Aria's shouting echoed through the empty confines of the place. Patriarch nodded to Anto, the head of Aria's bodyguards; he was stationed at the stairs leading up to Aria's balcony.

"Evening, Anto. How is she?" he asked quietly. Above them, Aria was still going on.

The batarian blinked his four eyes. "She's been worse…or so they say. Myself, I don't believe it. It's a good thing you're back, Patriarch," he said with evident relief. "You might want to brace yourself before you go up there, though."

"Duly noted," Patriarch returned. He drew a breath, and started up.

As he reached the top of the stairs, a wine bottle came whistling through the air at him. Patriarch saved his face by a quick dodge to the left. Fragments of broken glass peppered him, but he ignored them; krogan hide was thick enough that they did no real harm. Besides, he needed all his attention to deal with Aria.

"You!" Aria raged at him. Her blue skin was flushed almost purple, and she was breathing hard. "Where the hell have you been, you worthless, pathetic varrenshit-licker? Answer me, or I'll put your quad in a vise!"

"And a pleasant evening to you too, Aria," Patriarch replied, moving forward cautiously. Out of the corner of his wide-set eyes, he could see Aria's lieutenants cowering at the edges of the balcony, and unobtrusively motioned them toward the stairs. He was seriously alarmed, though he tried not to show it; he had never seen Aria in such a condition before. "Why yes, I'm doing well, thank you for asking. Yourself?"

"Don't you play your games with me, you wombless eunuch!" Aria snarled at him. "I asked you a question. Where in the seven hells have you been? I sent Jako's team out six hours ago to take care of that justicar, and they still haven't reported back in. And if you— Where the hell are you going?" she shouted at her lieutenants, who had been sidling toward the stairs. They promptly halted, their eyes going fearfully to Aria.

"Jako won't be reporting back in," Patriarch interjected, taking another step forward. "He and his team are dead. Samara killed them."

Aria froze, considering. The moment seemed to stretch out. "All right," she said at last, low and menacing. "All of you, get out. Not you," she snarled at him. "But the rest of you. Go."

It wasn't quite a stampede for the exits, but Aria's lieutenants didn't waste any time getting out of there, either. Patriarch rocked himself back on his heels and dug in, waiting. When the balcony was at last empty, she turned on him.

"All right. All right, you cuntless varren-dung spawn. You're going to tell me how you know that. Now." Yet she did not lift a hand; her biotics remained quiescent within her. There's that at least, Patriarch thought. The two of them had long since passed the point of attacking each other physically, or so he thought, but seeing Aria like this made him wonder….

"Because I went down there to visit Samara this afternoon," he answered steadily.

"What!" Now the storm broke; Aria's biotics flared to life around her. A priceless third-century Dilinaga glass table lifted itself from the ground and went hurling through the air to smash into a wall. "When the hell did I even give you permission to leave the bar, let alone have anything to do with that justicar? What the hell were you trying to do, sell me out? I ought to flay that miserable krogan hide right off your back, you titless, gutless—"

Patriarch sighed, suddenly very tired. "Aria, stop it with the name-calling," he told her wearily. "It's not helping anything. You know I wasn't trying to sell you out; if I wanted to do that I could have done it decades ago—"

"I'd have ripped your shriveled little quad off and shoved it down your throat if you'd tried—"

"That too," he acknowledged. He sighed again. "You know I wasn't trying to sell you out, girl. We're long past that now, you and I. In fact, I was trying to save your pretty blue hide. The least you could do is thank me."

Aria stared at him for a long, long moment, breathing hard, her biotics rippling around her in corona. Slowly, the aura around her faded, and she sank down on the couch behind her. She was still panting, and she raised one arm to wipe sweat off her forehead. Patriarch watched for a moment longer, to be sure the danger had subsided, then took a seat opposite her. Aria glared at him.

"I didn't say you could sit down."

"I'm old, I've been on my feet all day. If you have a problem with it, shoot me and be done." Aria let it pass. Patriarch leaned back in his seat, watching her. After a moment, she raised her hands and ran them over her face, then caught up another wine bottle by the side of the couch. She took another long gulp from it, shuddered once all over, and raised her eyes to look at him.

"What happened?" she asked.

Patriarch shifted a bit. "So, I went down there early this evening," he told her. "I thought I would see this justicar and ask if there was anything we could offer her to convince her to leave the station."

"You should have cleared it with me beforehand—"

"I thought it would be best to do it informally," Patriarch countered. "Better to give you the possibility of denying it, if the need arose."

Aria considered for a moment, then nodded very reluctantly. "That makes sense," she admitted. "Don't ever try anything like that again without telling me first, though," she added, glaring at him. Patriarch shrugged. In reality, he would do whatever he felt necessary, and both of them knew it. But if it makes her happy to go along with her….

"So…" Aria ran her hands over her face again, and glanced up with a strange expression: raw cynicism tinged with something that looked very like a desperate hope. "What did—did she say?"

"She said no, Aria," Patriarch told her gently, and watched the light in her face go out. "Said that there was nothing we could offer her to get her to leave, that the kinds of things we could offer her—"

"—were not the kinds of things she would be interested in," Aria finished for him, her expression as sour as if she had bitten into an Earth lemon. "Of course that's what she said. All justicars are like that. Going down there to talk to her was a fool's errand in the first place."

"Maybe so," Patriarch acknowledged, letting the jibe pass. "I also went down there because I wanted to have a look at her. See what we're up against. Like I've told you a thousand times, girl: know your enemy."

"I already know my enemy, you plated imbecile," Aria snarled. "She's a justicar. All asari girls are raised on tales of justicars, from the time they're in their cradles. Believe me—" Aria drew a shuddering breath "—I know what she's like."

"Well, I didn't," he responded. "I wanted to see what she was made of. Take her measure."

"And?" Aria leaned toward him, putting the wine bottle down at her side. She was clearly giving him her full attention. "What do you—what do you think?"

He drew a long breath. "I stand by what I said earlier," he said quietly. "Your best choice is to run."

He had braced for the explosion, but none came. Aria stared at him, frozen-faced, then stood up. She turned her back on him and walked to the railing, standing there silently, looking out over the empty floor of her club. The reddish lighting flickered on her skin. After a moment, he continued.

"I was there, when Jako's team attacked. She killed them all, all three of them, without even breathing hard. She told me she'd already killed most of the vorcha in the sector, all by herself, and I saw no reason to disbelieve her. I know—I know you don't like to hear this, girl, but she's out of your league. Aria?" he tried. "Aria, girl, are you listening to me?"

Her back was to him, tense and rigid; her head, bowed. "I can't leave."

Patriarch sat forward. "Of course you can. If the choice is between leaving and dying—"

"No. I can't." Those hard shoulders trembled. Alarmed, Patriarch rose from his seat and went to stand beside her.

"Aria, Aria—you can leave, you have to—"

She turned away. Her hands clenched in fists at her sides. "I can't. I can't."

"Yes you can. Yes, you can, girl. Here. Come here." Without even thinking about it, Patriarch put one arm around her shoulders, drawing her back down to the couch. He could feel her trembling against him like a live wire overcharged with current. "Come on, Aria," he said. "What do you say? No shame in knowing your limits. If this justicar is out of your league, then she is, that's all. Staying and fighting isn't going to do you any good." She felt very small under his arm; he'd always been amazed that something as small as she was could contain so much power. "Just go. It won't be so bad. I'll go with you, I promise. The universe is full of hives of scum and villainy out there, just waiting for an asari and her pet krogan to whip them into shape. We could go to Korlus," he suggested. "Or if you don't want to go there, there are any number of Terminus Systems worlds I can think of. You've got centuries ahead of you, and me, well, I've still got some good decades left in me yet. What do you say?"

"No. I can't leave Omega." The words were muffled; she leaned into him as if she were taking shelter in his lee, and she pressed her face briefly against him. Perhaps it left the front of his tunic a little damp, but what of that? He wouldn't tell anyone. And anyway, when she finally pulled away from him, her eyes were dry. "I have to fight her," she said, composing herself with an effort. "I have to stay and fight her…to prove I'm not afraid."

"Aria, with all due respect, that's just about the stupidest thing I've ever heard you say," he told her bluntly. "Prove you're not afraid? To who?" She didn't answer. "I know you're smarter than that, girl. Come on. If you run, you can—"

Aria cut him off. She jumped to her feet and paced to the balcony, then turned on him. "No. I'm staying," she insisted. "I've never run from a fight in my life and I'm not starting now."

"Girl, don't be a fool—"

"Enough. I've made my decision. I'm staying." Her eyes narrowed. "Patriarch."

The word was both an insult and a reminder; he forced himself to swallow what he had been going to say next. Aria gave a thin smile. She drifted over to the couch opposite him and resettled there. Another gulp or two from the wine bottle, and her equilibrium seemed to come seeping back.

"Who knows," she mused, half to herself. "Things have been too quiet on this rock for a while now. I haven't had to put down a real threat to my power in decades. A fight with this justicar could be just the thing—a chance to remind everyone just why the only rule of Omega is what it is. And if—when," she corrected herself at once, and took another swallow of wine. "When I defeat her, can you imagine the stories?" That thin smile returned. "Aria T'Loak, the slayer of Justicar Samara. That's something to think about, all right."

She glanced at him. Patriarch remained stubbornly silent. Aria's brows drew together in irritation an she snapped her fingers at him sharply. "Enough about her. Patriarch. Come, let's talk of other things."

He hesitated a moment longer, then sighed. "If you wish, Aria."

The two of them sat alone in the empty club, discussing station business, long into the night. Patriarch held up his end of the conversation as best he could, but he couldn't shake a pervasive air of unreality—a sense that everything they were discussing was trivial and ultimately meaningless in the light of what would come in less than two days' time. Whether Aria sensed it or not, he couldn't have told, but she continued to drink heavily from her wine bottle throughout the evening; her head began to droop, her eyes to drift closed, and the pauses in her conversation grew longer and longer. At last, having put the same question to her three times and gotten no response, he looked at her closely and realized she was asleep.

With a groan, he levered himself up off the sofa. His left knee ached; Aria had shattered that one, during their climactic fight, and even though it had long since regenned, there was still a tell-tale stiffness to it after he'd been sitting too long. Patriarch ignored it. "Aria," he said quietly. "Aria, girl." He reached out and took her by the shoulder, shaking her gently. The wine bottle fell from her limp fingers, and her head rolled, but her eyes did not open. Out like a light.

Bracing himself to take her weight, he slid his arms under her and lifted her up off the couch. Aria mumbled and shifted a bit, settling against his chest, but did not open her eyes. Manuevering carefully with her in his arms, he made his way through the deserted club, toward the back and up the private stair there. Aria's door was one of the few rooms that the keycode she had given him would not open, so he carried her to his own quarters, through the living room to the sleeping chamber at the back. With a strange gentleness, he laid her down in his own bed, then pulled the sheets up around her and carefully tucked them in. She shifted slightly, and nestled deeper into the covers without wakening. Patriarch stood there, looking down at her for a long moment, remembering.

Aria, Aria…. She'd been so young when she'd first come onto this station as a dancer, in the years years ago, back when he had been the foremost krogan warlord in the entire system. She'd been just the tiniest little slip of a thing, limber and lithe just as he liked them in those days…not that there had ever been anything between them, of course. Back then, Patriarch had made it a strict policy never to get involved with any of his dancers—only common sense; you don't shit where you eat, he'd used to say. If he'd been better at enforcing that rule among his men, he mused ruefully, maybe things would have gone differently. And in all the centuries since she had broken him and seized the station for her own, despite all the things she had turned to him for, she had never turned to him for that. Who knows why, he mused. Perhaps for the same reason.

Even back then, you had that gleam in your eye, didn't you, girl? The one that said "I'm going to rule the world." He just hadn't seen it. Hadn't recognized it for what it was, until it was already too late and the balance of power had shifted on its arm.

As it is shifting now? Patriarch didn't know. But he'd been on this rock longer than anyone else alive. He knew its rhythms, felt its currents; they pulsed in his blood, were woven into his bones. Aria claims that she's Omega, but she's wrong. I am Omega. And something within himwas whispering that once again, a change was coming; like a tide slowly gathering force, yet inexorable once in motion.

Samara. That justicar. She was one of Shepard's krantt, and if anything so mythic as heroes still roamed the galaxy, Shepard and her crew were it. He watched the extranet, and what he saw there of her deeds was impressive, but he also knew where to look to get the rest of the story, and the underground information networks had been buzzing with chatter about her ever since she woke up. The consensus that was rapidly building there was that if even half of what was rumored about Shepard and her krantt was true, then the best thing to do was to avoid them at all costs. And now, one of that band is here. Just at the moment the tides begin to turn….

Aria. Aria, my girl…. Patriarch reached out with one talon. Gently, he brushed her soft blue cheek, and wondered what he would do when the time came.

The next day, he went to talk to Aria's men.