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"Can you keep a secret?"
Solana's five years old, dressed up nicely at her parents' friends' house for the kind of dinner party where she doesn't really understand what the grownups are talking about. At least these couples have kids, a boy and a girl like her and Garrus, but cousins instead of twins.
It's the girl - was Nyreen her name? - who's looking at her intently now, a hint of mischief in the angle of her mandibles, and Solana can't resist a secret.
"Yeah."
Maybe-Nyreen's mandibles tilt up. "Okay, follow me."
She heads for the door, Solana a step behind her, and as they pass the boys, her cousin asks, "Nyreen, where are you going?"
"I need to show Solana where the bathroom is," Nyreen says easily, and the boys nod and wave them off.
They go past the bathroom and through the winding halls of Nyreen's aunt and uncle's house, Solana's interest growing when Nyreen feeds omni-gel into the lock on a door.
"Should we be in here?" she asks anyway.
"Probably not," Nyreen admits, and she takes Solana's hand as she tugs her inside.
It looks like a bedroom - Nyreen doesn't bother turning the lights on, and they're not in there long enough for Solana to tell properly before Nyreen leads her through another formerly locked door, up a flight of stairs, and then out onto a balcony that must be the highest point of the house, overlooking the city below. Solana's eyes widen as she whirls around and around to take it all in: carefully trimmed plants along the fences of the balcony in sharp contrast to Cipitrine's lights glinting off the buildings. When she meets Nyreen's eyes again, she's smiling.
"My auntie doesn't know I know how to get out here," Nyreen says proudly. "I think she thinks it's too high up for us, or we'll ruin the plants, or something."
Solana would never think of ruining the plants. "How'd you find it?"
"I was playing with Tiran, and he fell over onto that door, and Auntie must not have locked it that time because he fell in, so we went up to have a look."
"It's so pretty," Solana says.
"I thought you'd like it," Nyreen says. "I saw you looking out your car window when your family was landing: your brother was talking but you were just looking."
It's her first time in this part of town, her family and most of her parents' friends living elsewhere in the city not nearly as high up. "Thanks for showing me."
"Can you keep a secret?"
Solana's ten, with Nyreen at her house but this time it's just her coming over after school to hang out, not a whole family thing.
"Uh-huh."
Nyreen looks up at Solana's open bedroom door, lifts a hand, and pushes: she's several metres from the door but the smell of eezo's suddenly in the air, and blue light crackles as the door's shoved shut.
Solana's jaw drops. "That was-- you did--"
But Nyreen looks more worried than she's ever seen her in the five years they've known each other, and that is mo+re important than her shock. Solana instead breathes, "That was so cool."
Relief floods Nyreen's features. "Really?"
"Coolest thing I've ever seen," she says honestly. "I've never seen biotics in real life before."
"Neither had I, until..." Nyreen gestures vaguely. "My parents got me an asari tutor so I could control it. And probably so I don't blow anything up."
"Oh, come on," says Solana. "You'd never blow something up. Without a really good reason."
"Yeah, but you know what people are like about biotics."
She does, but she had never thought it might be applicable to one's own family. Nyreen's nervousness makes sense now. Impulsively, she leans forward and hugs Nyreen. "Thanks for telling me."
"Can you keep a secret?"
Solana's fifteen, seven months into mandatory military service, catching up with Garrus in the mess hall. He looks at her sideways.
"I'm your twin: of course I can."
One last time, she checks her team isn't in earshot before confessing, "I think I have a crush on Nyreen."
Garrus looks unimpressed. "Sol, I've been keeping that one secret for the last three years."
"What? Shut up!"
"It's obvious from the way you look at her," he says. "Has been for, you know, the last three years."
"You are the worst," she says, but there isn't any heat in it.
"Anyway, the more important part is: what are you going to do about it?"
"I dunno." She pokes at her dinner. "I don't wanna make things weird."
"You could be happy instead of weird," he points out. "Think about it, sis."
"Can you keep a secret?"
Solana's twenty, lying with her head in Nyreen - her girlfriend, she still can't help but feel giddy to think - in Nyreen's lap in the barracks after Nyreen's farewell drinks, simultaneously so proud of her for finally having her skills recognised by the higher ups and quietly distraught that this means she's being moved to another unit.
"Of course I can," Solana says.
"I didn't get a promotion," Nyreen whispers.
Solana sits up so quickly that she almost knocks her head on Nyreen's chin. "What? But Sarge said--"
"They found out I'm a biotic." Nyreen won't meet her eyes. "I'm going to the cabals."
"You were so careful."
"I know."
"How can they do this, you've been doing so well - all your experience--" Something occurs to her. "Can you ask your aunt--"
"No!" Nyreen's voice cracks on the word. "I'd barely gotten out of the briefing and wrapped my head around it when she got in touch and said, 'Don't even think about it.' I hadn't until she said that."
She leans her forehead against Nyreen's. "Ugh, this isn't fair."
"I know. I don't even want to use my biotics for combat."
As quickly as she's trying to think, Solana finds herself out of ideas. "You'll keep in touch, right?"
"I'll try."
"Can you keep a secret?"
Solana's twenty-five, fresh out of active service, and back at another one of her family's dinner parties where the parents discuss things she understands better now, but this time it's Tiran asking her that question, so she raises a browplate.
"Sure."
Tiran looks around again, then leans in closer. "Nyreen's in town. She wanted me to tell you."
Nyreen went AWOL from the military within months of being sent to the cabals; Solana only found out about it through relentless and careful digging. She grabs him by the shoulders.
"What - where--"
He lifts his arms, and she thinks it's to shove her away until his omni-tool lights up on his arm, he types something, and her own lights up with a notification. "I've sent you the coordinates. If you go now, I'll cover for you with Garrus and our parents."
She goes, into districts of Cipitrine she's always avoided. When she knocks on the door of an apartment where the building manager had clearly given up on the buzzer system, the secret knock she and Nyreen had come up with back when they were kids, a pyjak scampers past her feet and she tries not to flinch.
"Sol?"
It's the first time she's heard Nyreen's voice in years, and when Nyreen opens the door, the first time she's seen her in longer. She throws herself into Nyreen's arms. "Where have you been?"
Nyreen holds her just as tightly, but says, "Not here," and pulls her inside the tiny apartment, so grotty she can't stand to see her living here. "I've been... feels like everywhere in turian space. Merc work."
Solana's stomach drops. "You went mercenary? Nyreen, I can't believe that's what you wanted to be doing." Not with Nyreen's principles of always wanting to help those who couldn't help themselves.
"It isn't! But it turns out that's the main work available for someone who deserted, especially a deserter with biotics."
"Why did you go?"
"I couldn't stand it any more," Nyreen says. "The cabals weren't where I wanted to be, not what I wanted to be doing. My CO was awful, my teammates weren't much better. So I packed my bags and never came back from shore leave."
"Nyreen..."
Nyreen pulls away from her, avoiding her gaze by fussing with luggage. "I just wanted to see you again before I go to Omega."
"Omega?"
"Lots of merc work there," Nyreen says. "And if it's so terrible there, there must be people who need helping there too, right? Someone's got to be growing the food, maintaining the buildings. There's probably kids. It must be even worse for them living with all those gangs."
It makes a certain kind of sense in that very Nyreen way. "When do you leave?"
"Tomorrow."
"Nyreen--"
"This was always just going to be a quick stop to grab the last of my things at my parents'," Nyreen says. "And they just about threw me out of the house - they disowned me because I deserted."
Solana goes to her again, wrapping her arms around her. She'd never thought she'd willingly associate with a deserter either, but that was before her first love deserted. "I'm so sorry."
"They didn't get me anyway," says Nyreen, but there's a fragility to her subharmonics that belies her bravado. "Always wanted me to be part of the family curse, I mean, tradition. And biotics made a mess of that too."
She squeezes her tighter. "Look, will you at least keep in touch? Let me know you're still alive?"
"I'll try."