Chapter Text
Shepard blew through the outer doors of the council chambers, and just kept walking. His face was set in stone, unreadable, but something about the way the the man was moving cleared a path through the crowded hallway anyway. Shepard ducked around a Keeper that was conducting repairs on a portion of the ceiling up ahead, and stalked on.
Gangs of workmen were everywhere on the Citadel now, nearly every race, like a new kind of ambassador. Maybe they were. Some of the workers had been part of the Crucible construction team, others were new, sent in as they could be spared from the reconstruction going on on their own homeworlds and colonies, but they all shared a common purpose- -to get the galactic center of commerce and government back up and running at full strength as soon as possible.
Four years on from the end of the Reaper war, Trade at least was in full swing. So was barter, haggling, swindling, theft, the black-market, and outright piracy. Between that and the aggressive reshuffling of territory that was going on as it became clear how many of thousands of each race had survived, the council’s Spectres had been kept very busy.
Shepard was officially on leave now, and he was pissed as hell.
-
“Spectre Alenko, do you have any idea where Shepard is?” the Salarian councilor asked.
Kaidan paused momentarily, trying to gauge the feeling in the council chamber, and guess whether the question had been a rhetorical one.
“He’s visiting a friend off-station, why?”
“Do you know where he is, EXACTLY?” the Salerian pressed, steepling her fingers.
“No I don’t, but I trust him,” Kaidan replied, “-may I ask what this is about, Councilor?”
“We have received reports that Shepard is travelling with the Krantt of Urdnot Wrex, aboard a Krogan warship.”
“That’s correct.”
The Turian councilor folded his arms, and the Dalitress exchanged a look with the Asari councilor on her right.
“We understand the two of you completed a human heat cycle recently, and that reproduction can be… difficult for your species,” the Asari began, “-it was thought that-”
“Madame councilor,” Kaidan cut her off, as politely as he could stand to, “-Shepard is my husband, not yours. Yes, we had hopes early on, and I appreciate the consideration the council showed for us then, but…” he paused, and rubbed his forehead with one hand, “-look, this just isn’t in the cards for us, and by putting Shepard on the spot every time it happens ...you’re only making this worse.”
“I see. I… am sorry, Spectre.”
“So am I,” Kaidan admitted, “-now… you said something about a mission…?”
-
Sliding hard in the loose volcanic gravel, Shepard got off two more shots, and vanished behind the cover of an outcropping of boulders to let his weapon cool down. The Thresher maw vanished as well, slithering quickly underground. Ever watchful, the Krogans regrouped. The maw came up in their midst this time, and the hunting party turned on it with extreme ferocity. Three Krogans were left smouldering with acid, and the maw retreated again. Shepard shouldered his combine, and began climbing up the back of the second-largest boulder for a better firing position. At the top, he switched to his grenade launcher and waited. The ground rumbled warningly, and then all fell silent. The Maw came up, spat acid, and took fire. Shepard hit it in the back of the neck with two grenades, and it corkscrewed out of sight underground, screaming in a way that made the base of his skull hurt.
Shepard counted back from ten in his head. At two, the gravel in front of the boulders exploded, and the Maw arched back, tentacles spread wide. Shepard shot it twice on the arc, and then dropped straight down off the back of the boulder, armored fingers catching an angle of the rock as the Maw scraped angrily over the crest and down into the ground again. Shepard let out the breath he’d been holding, and climbed the rest of the way down.
-
The Rachni were waiting for him, a squad of six soldiers and one brood warrior. Kaidan approached the above-ground entrance to their nest stiffly, and signalled for the marines behind him to keep their weapons down.
Two Rachni soldiers flanked them. Kaidan’s hands were empty, but as everyone including the Rachni they were here to see knew, that didn’t mean he was any less dangerous.
The brood warrior came forward with a clicking of chitinous claws, and stopped in front of Kaidan, his head swaying a little. The four glowing eyes on each side of the Rachni’s head met Kaidan’s two. Kaidan allowed his eyes to glow back.
“I’m Major Kaidan Alenko, a Spectre from the council. I was sent here to speak with your queen, at her request,” he said. The brood-warrior shuffled his feet, and waved the tentacles on his back a little. Neither had a damned clue what the other was saying. Kaidan turned his head slightly to one side, and waited, betting that any Rachni sent out to parlay with them would be intelligent enough to realize this also.
He was.
The brood warrior stopped waving his tentacles, and seemed to sit back on his four hind feet for a moment, considering. Then he walked around Kaidan’s group, attempting to cut the biotic human out from the others. Kaidan put a hand on the shoulder of the Asari commando/translator beside him and ordered,
“Everyone else, take a step back.”
The brood warrior got up very close, eyeing the Asari critically. She stood her ground, and Kaidan’s hand stayed on her shoulder. The brood warrior finished his inspection of them, and shuffled unhurriedly back. Four of the Rachni soldiers kept an eye on the marines, and the two who had been ordered to flank stayed in position. Kaidan didn’t like it, but he couldn’t blame the alien for using erring on the side of caution in his own home.
The brood warrior raised his head, and then leaned his body in the direction of the nest entrance. He took a few clicking sideways steps, and looked back to see if Kaidan and the Asari would follow.
“I understand,” Kaidan nodded once, and they went underground.
-
The Krogan ship forged on through the night, her FTL drive a low, ponderous humm. Shepard saved the message he’d been writing, and put the datapad down, sliding his boots off the large crate he’d taken to using for a desk. He’d been feeling ‘off’ ever since that last FTL jump, and as he stood, the sensation resolved itself into into a small but sharp pain, deep down in his stomach. He knew what this was. Knew what his body was about to refuse him again some time that night, and the knowledge felt like beginning a free-fall.
Shepard reached up, and put both hands on the thick pipe that ran across the small cabin’s ceiling. He shut his eyes, jaw set tight, and stood there for a long moment. Then he sighed, went downstairs to take a shower.
There were not many humans of any gender who would walk naked into an occupied Krogan bathhouse, but Captain Shepard was having a bad fucking day, and he didn’t give a damn.
Five naked Krogan stared back at him from the heated pool that took up most of the damp-walled room.
“Hi,” Shepard said, flatly.
He turned the single shower-head on- -the ‘sluice’, as it was called, because it’s primary function was ridding the bather of excess filth and gore before he entered the pool- -and took a bottle of liquid soap out of the bathing kit he’d brought.
“Hey,” one of the Krogan ventured.
“Hi Shepard,” said another.
“Shepard?”
“Sheparrrdd-”
“Heyya, Shepard,” Grunt grinned, from the steam-clouded back corner.
“Grunt, Galn, Rok,” Shepard replied the the faces he knew, smiling in spite of himself.
“Shepard!” they called back happily.
“Come do shots with us!” one of the older Krogan demanded, digging an unlabelled brownish-red bottle out of his weapon-pile at the edge of the pool.
Shepard paused, rinsing the soap off of his body. He should be getting back to his cabin soon, but nothing said he had to actually get INTO the pool with them…
“-Why the hell not?” he agreed, shutting the water off.
-
Kaidan had a headache, and the Rachni weren’t helping. They were convinced- -not altogether without cause- -that the Krogan were trying to move in on their territory. The problem was that there were now THREE Rachni queens with active nests, and according to the Krogans manning a small supply depot just outside it, one of the queens had struck some sort of bargain with them, though what it was, they wouldn’t say.
“How do you do it?” Kaidan asked Tau’ali.
“Do what?” the Asari asked.
“Let her into your head like that,” Kaidan replied, nodding- -carefully, dammit- -in the direction of the Rachni queen.
“I represented her daughter in the peace conference two years ago,” Tau’ali shrugged, “-letting them speak through me is like… like in commando training, when the instructor shows you the next move by moving your limbs biotically.”
“Free will, but… you go with it.”
“Yes.”
“-I’m glad she doesn’t try that on me,” Kaidan admitted, rubbing the back of his neck.
“Of course not. You’re a biotic human Alpha, so… she basically sees you as a brood warrior,” Tau’ali explained, secretly waiting to see what color the Major would turn next.
Instead, Kaidan started laughing, and winced.
-
Shepard woke up, without the slightest idea where he was. He was wrapped in a blanket of some thick, heavy cloth, that didn’t feel as though it had been woven with humans in mind. He was damp, in places. Also naked. This list wasn’t going well. An attempt to raise his head went even worse, and Shepard’s stomach churned dangerously. He groaned a little.
“Hey, you’re alive…” Grunt greeted him, from somewhere outside his field of vision. “-I don’t think I’ve ever seen a human drink that much and live before... Are you gonna- -aw shit, HERE-”
Something boxy and metal with corners was shoved into his hands, and Shepard threw up into it.
“Feel better?” Grunt asked.
“...No...” Shepard swallowed, thickly.
“-Keep it,” Grunt snorted, and began rifling through a cabinet bolted into the wall.
Shepard was sick again after a minute or two, but slowly edged his way up into a sitting position.
“Got any water?” he asked, his voice rough.
“You’ve done this before…” Grunt chuckled, and passed him a half-full metal canteen.
“-Navy,” Shepard managed with a hint of humor, and fumbled the cap off. He drank a few sips, and let that settle, head down.
“What does the shaking thing mean?” Grunt asked, bluntly.
“-Uh?” Shepard looked up, using mostly just his eyes.
“You’re shaking.”
The blanket had pooled around his waist as Shepard attempted to sit up, and Grunt was absolutely right, he was shivering.
“-Cold,” Shepard said, and re-capped the canteen, setting it aside. He pulled the blanket back up around his shoulders, and wrapped his arms around himself. There wasn’t much light in the room, but Shepard noticed that the blanket didn’t look quite… clean. Bloodstains. There was a little blood there. -From him?
Oh.
Right.
The air seemed to thin, abruptly. He shut his eyes, feeling the compartment spin slowly around him. He had to threw up again, but here wasn’t much.
“Damn, Shepard… you done?” Grunt asked, arms folded.
“...Yeah,” Shepard decided, laying back down on the bunk that wasn’t his, “-f’r the moment…”
“Heheh.”
“...Can I just stay here ‘n sleep this off?” he asked hopefully, eyes shut.
“Rok said to hit you if you moved anyway,” Grunt shrugged.
“-Rok?” Shepard repeated, dully.
“He looked you over after ya bled through the last blanket. Says you should be fine in a couple’a days,” he shrugged.
“Ugghhh, christ,” Shepard groaned, and curled up on himself a little. This was NOT a part of his personal life he’d wanted to share with a ship full of Krogan.
“Shepard, shut up. Yeah, everybody knows after what you pulled in the pool, but we respect how you’re handling this. Like a Krogan. Now sleep it off with the hangover, get your damn clothes back on, and maybe there’ll be some threshers left for you.”
Shepard was silent for a long moment.
“...Better be,” he muttered, eyes still shut. Five minutes later, he was asleep again.
-
Kaidan clicked his helmet down into place, and cycled the action of the weapon in his hands while the airlock hissed itself empty. The doors opened, and his team moved out.
For a lifeless world, it looked as though somebody had had a hell of a party here recently. The scorch-marks and half-melted gleam of beam-rifle impact points peppered the rocks along the canyon’s side, and there were at least two kinds of craters, in addition to the loose-gravelled sinkholes of recent thresher maw activity.
Around a bend of the canyon floor, the landing party stopped short.
“Well,” Perry muttered, “-there’s somethin’ you don’t see every day…”
Before them, dried out in the thin atmosphere like the elongated carcass of a small earth whale left too long on a beach, lay the stripped exoskeleton of a sizeable thresher maw. It had been dragged fully halfway out of it’s hole, and butchered for the meat it contained with great force and enthusiasm.
“Krogans,” Tau’ali stated, “-the Queen was right, they are moving into this nebula.”
“They’ve certainly been through here...” Kaidan agreed, surveying the tracks around the carcass carefully. He straightened up, and put his rifle away. “-Looks like they’re hunting on foot,” he added.
“ON FOOT? Who does that?” she demanded.
“Clan Urdnot, that I’m aware of…” Kaidan replied thoughtfully, “-and Captain Shepard,” he added, because he could.
Behind him, Perry rolled his eyes. Kaidan turned and looked at the young marine knowingly, then began walking back towards the shuttle. Perry stared after him superstitiously, and didn’t move.
“He didn’t read your mind,” Tau’ali assured him, patting his shoulder-armor tolerantly.
“But-”
“-You’re just predictable.”
-
“THRESHER STEAKS,” Galn declared, looking down into the dented metal tray in front of him with a feverish eye, “-LIFE GETS NO BETTER THAN THIS!”
“Spoken like a Krogan who hasn’t gotten laid lately…” the warrior sitting across from him laughed.
“Are you still counting your Varren,..?” Galn leered back.
Shepard spared the pair an amused glance, but his focus remained on his food, which could be said for nearly all the Krogan at the table. A fresh round of thresher steaks, in peacetime at least, was more than reason enough to just drop out of FTL at a random point in space and EAT for a while. ...He had to get Kaidan to try this stuff sometime.
-
“We need to come up with a way for the Rachni to communicate telepathically over long distances,” Kaidan told the council.
“I know of such prototypes,” the holographic Dalitress said, nonplussed, “-what is your purpose with such a device?”
“I’ve spoken to all three Rachni queens now, and it’s a case of the right hand doesn’t know what the left is doing. Yes, the younger two both share the memories of the queen we released on Utukku, but now only one is willing to cut deals with the Krogan. If these queens don’t talk to each other soon, someone’s going to try and take out the Krogan warship that the third queen hired, and… well, you get the picture.”
“Indeed,” the Turian Councilor said, thoughtfully.
“Have you learned what the Krogans were promised?” the Asari Councilor asked.
“Yes. This Nebula was held by the Rachni in ancient times, but since their extinction, the spread of thresher maws has gone completely unchecked. The third queen hired the Krogans to clear the maws out for her, and she’s been giving them a few of the more habitable colony worlds in exchange.”
“What clan has she hired for this?” the Turian wanted to know.
“It’s not a clan, Councilor. It’s Aralakh company,” Kaidan explained, “-they were nearly wiped out covering the retreat of the Rachni queen during the war, but they’ve been re-formed since, and Urdnot Grunt is still in command. -I believe he’s the one the third queen is really trusting, here.”
“Well, I’m all for it,” the Turian said without hesitation, “-two aggressive, quick-breeding races, one out-of-the-way nebula…” he spread his hands.
“I agree,” the Dalitress said, inclining her head.
“Wait a minute, I seem to recall that LAST month you were highlighting the possibilities of neighbouring Krogan and Human colonies-” the Councilor from Earth began.
“What if the Rachni and the Krogan actually DO get along?” the Asari councilor interrupted him.
“Ah- back to the problem of how we can get the three Rachni queens to talk to each other...?” Kaidan interjected.
-
Shepard lay back on his bunk, one hand under his head, and thumbed through the messages on his datapad. He’d read them all already, but sleep wouldn’t come. -Thresher steak was doing him no favors, there. Reliable extranet-links weren’t a major priority on the Krogan warship either, and though he and Kaidan had been writing short unsecured messages back and forth all along, it had been weeks since they’d been able to set up a face-to-face meeting. Shepard had needed the distance at first. Needed time, but- now he remembered Kaidan’s face beside him on half a dozen worlds before the council had even appointed them Spectres, and he just… missed him.
-
The Rachni were understandably nervous about letting ANYONE, even someone they knew from Shepard’s crew, set up complex machines in the very heart of their nests. Machines had burned them before. More than once.
It got Kaidan to thinking….
The tech might well work as advertized, but the repeated emphasis on the long-range telepathic array being a prototype had begun to strike the Major as odd. He considered the Salarians, and the secret deal the last Dalitress had tried to cut with Shepard, their aid in the war effort in exchange for subtly sabotaging the Genophage cure.
No, he decided reluctantly, he didn’t put it past the Salarians to see the simultaneous trust of the Rachni queens as an opportunity not to be missed. But what to do about it now that the device was already being built? Kaidan would have insisted on testing the array himself, but he wasn’t telepathic, and Tau’ali was one of his, he didn't want to risk her if it could be avoided...
-
“Grunt, there you are,” Shepard leaned a hand casually against the heavy metal doorframe.
“Shepard,” Grunt nodded, unfazed.
“You know I’m having a blast out here with you guys, but when exactly are we gonna make port again?” he asked, fixing the young Krogan Captain with a pointed look.
“Uhhhhh…”
“-That’s what I thought.”
“But we like you, Shepard…” Grunt protested, “-and you like to fight.”
“I know Grunt, but I’m a Council Spectre, and they expected me back two weeks ago.”
Grunt set his jaw, and looked stubborn. He didn’t actually have the words, ‘FUCK THE GALACTIC COUNCIL’ painted across his forehead-crest, but the sentiment was clear enough.
“-And I want Kaidan,” Shepard added, firmly.
Grunt gave a deep, long-suffering sigh.
“Look- Shepard… what’s the Rachni queen gonna think if we leave the job half-done, huh? They’ve got scout-ships, they’ll know if we’ve jumped out of the nebula. ...She’s giving us WORLDS for this, okay? The Krogan need those...”
“Uh… huh,” Shepard studied his face, thoughtfully. Grunt was definitely holding out on him. “-Then it’s a good thing the Normandy happens to be within ten light years of here,” he said, folding his arms.
“She’s WHAT? How did you do THAT?”
“It’s got nothing to do with me,” Shepard shrugged, “-Kaidan had a mission in the next system over. He could come pick me up now, no problem. Or… you can tell me what we’re really doing out here.”
“I… can’t,” Grunt admitted, “-I swore an oath. But I think it’s time you had a talk with Wrex. He tells it better anyhow,” He shouldered the shotgun he’d been re-assembling, and walked towards the doorway Shepard was standing in.
“I thought you said you couldn’t get a clear vidcom link from inside this nebula,” Shepard reminded him, coldly.
“Yeah, that’s why I’m ordering us out to the edge,” Grunt retorted, “-now move.”
Shepard shoved Grunt in the chest with both hands, hard. The Krogan’s balance swayed ever so slightly, but he didn’t bother stepping back to correct it.
“My ship,” Grunt growled, leaning within inches of the human’s face, “-my orders.”
“Don’t you dare fuck with me,” Shepard warned him, unimpressed.
“I’m not that stupid. And you’re not THIS stupid, Shepard,” Grunt said, poking him in the chest with a thick finger, “-talk to Wrex.”
“FINE,” Shepard snarled, turned on his heel, and left.
-
With a low humm that was more felt than heard, the telepathic array spread out across the underground nest-chamber powered up. Kaidan folded his arms, watching tensely. He glanced at the brood-warrior across the chamber from him, who replied with a brief clash of the pincers at the end of one of his tentacle pods. Kaidan looked away. The Salarian technician who had set the array up was moving around busily now, muttering under his breath, and taking readings every few seconds. In the center of the room the third queen waited, seemingly calm.
Kaidan had wondered at the fortitude of this queen’s mother back on Noveria, and as they shared the same memories, he had to wonder what this young queen was thinking that made her NEED to explain anything.
Maybe he admired the ability of an individual to differentiate themselves most of all in species for whom the process seemed to be the most difficult.
The Salarian ran a finger across an unbroken line of green bars on his readout screen, and said the array was ready. Tau’ali lowered a jointed metal band into place around the head of the queen, and it began to glow softly blue-white.
“You may begin,” Tau’ali/the queen said resonantly, turning.
It worked at first.
Then about two minutes in, one of the power-relays on the array’s underside blew in a spectacular shower of fluid and sparks. Tau’ali fell to the ground between the queen’s forelegs, and sat holding her head, dazed. The brood warrior closest to the queen made a sudden and murderous rush at the wide-eyed Salarian technician, and Kaidan snapped a barrier up between them just in time. He immobilized the Salarian, and the two biotics, Rachni and Human, glared at each other for a long moment.
“...Get thiiissss out of my nesssst…” Tau’ali slurred, pointing to the Salarian and breaking the standoff between the two.
“Yes, ma’am,” Kaidan said quickly, put the Salarian over his shoulder, and ran. Strangely, the Rachni let them go. On the surface, Kaidan was met by two alliance marines.
“Sir? What the hell happened down there?”
“Thank you so much for saving my life-” the Salarian began, as Kaidan lowered him back down.
“Throw this guy in the brig and make sure he stays there,” Kaidan ordered, offering the marines the Technician at arm’s length, “-sweep him for electronics first.”
-
When Wrex finished speaking, there was a long silence. Shepard’s gloved hands tightened at either side of the console in front of him with a barely-audible scrape of ceramic armor plates against metal.
“Your guys brought me out here… to use as a BARGAINING CHIP?” He repeated aloud.
“NO. Nobody TRADES my friends, and YOU needed a vacation,” Wrex accused, pointing directly into the holo-cam “-but these Rachni spook easy, Shepard… The queen Grunt talked to wants to use what we’re doing to prove to the other two queens that we Krogan can be trusted. But we’ve gotta DO it first, and if the hunting party runs into some of the OTHER two queens’ Rachni before that and we have to slaughter them... well, the deal’s off, right?”
“...So you brought me into this as a- flag of truce?”
“Basically… yeah.”
Shepard sighed.
“Okay. First, don’t ever involve me in Krogan politics without asking again. Second, you FUCKING OWE ME now, and third, I need to rendezvous with the Normandy.”
“That’s fair,” Wrex nodded, “She’s right there in the same nebula, you said.”
“Yeah, Kaidan’s in command.”
“Well that’s a plus,” Wrex rumbled, amused.
“You think I’d trust my ship to just anyone?” Shepard countered, folding his arms.
“Council sent Kaidan here to help the other Rachni, didn’t they,” Wrex guessed, shrewdly.
“Yeah. Something about uninvited guests…” Shepard began.
-
“You sabotaged the transmitter,” Tau’ali realized, sitting down on the crate beside him.
“Just enough, yeah.” Kaidan tore the top edge of his field-ration envelope open, and cracked the heat-pin on the side with his thumb.
“...Is that the only reason the device blew?” the Asari commando asked, frowning a little as she considered.
“No, I just made a small cut in the wall of a conductive fluid line underneath, to act as an emergency circuit-breaker. It blew because of a surge further up in the system. I didn’t cause that.”
The warm scent of meat and tomato sauce reminded Tau’ali of the unopened ration in her own hands, and she sliced off the top with a thin but very sharp-looking blade that folded out of the side of her necklace.
“So this was an assassination attempt,” she said, cracking the pin.
“We’ll never be able to prove it. What matters is that the queens are safe.”
“-Ughh, Salarians…” Tau’ali stirred her food as it came up to temperature, “-never trust anybody under thirty.”
“Hnh… well… I was the one who ordered that thing brought down here. I’m surprised the queen let us back into her nest at all. I mean, if somebody had-” Kaidan broke off, and took a bite of his food.
“You took a risk Major, but you also took steps to protect her,” Tau’ali pointed out, “-and me.”
“Mh,” Kaidan nodded noncommittally.
-
Shepard woke up in a cold sweat, with a twist of blanket caught around his left wrist. He yanked himself free and sat up, breathing hard, backing against the hard metal of the bulkhead until his fingers found the lightswitch. He flipped it, looked around for a moment at the empty cabin, and then shut his eyes with a sigh.
The dreams.
He’d always had rip-roaring nightmares from time to time, but after Akuze, the fears that he habitually banished to the back of his mind had begun to grow faces. To learn their own names. He should have dealt with it then, but the event itself had still been too recent, the risk of being medically discharged if he gave the brass just one more reason to doubt him, too real.
Yeah.
A real Beta could have handled the loss of his entire unit without whining about it afterwards, right?
Shepard left the light on, and pulled his datapad out of the gear-bag on the floor beside his bunk.
-
Kaidan held his hand out flat for a moment, not quite steady. He lowered it with a sigh, and switched on the glowing framework of his omni-tool, changing one of the settings.
“Are you all right?” Tau’ali asked confidentially, putting a hand on his arm.
“...How much do you know about Humans?” Kaidan countered, after a moment.
“I know this probably has something to do with your mate,” she admitted, “-but not much else.”
“Then yeah, I’m all right,” Kaidan told her, shutting his omni-tool off.
“-Bullshit,” Tau’ali decided, an expression she’d picked up recently from Perry.
“You’re learning. How about, I’ll be all right?” Kaidan admitted.
“That, I’d believe.”
-
“Decontamination sequence in progress…”
The process had supposedly been improved in recent years, but so far as Shepard could tell, the only difference was that getting back onto his ship took slightly longer, and right now that was just way too long…
Kaidan met him on the other side of the airlock door, alone.
Shepard buried his face in the side of the other man’s neck, eyes shut, and felt Kaidan’s arms close tightly around him through his armor. He smelled so good...
“Welcome home, Shepard,” Kaidan murmured, scarred lips soft against his ear.
Shepard squeezed his eyes shut tight, his breathing rough. He felt a warm hand cupping the back of his head, steady, and swallowed a couple of times.
“...I need to get out of this armor,” Shepard decided, drawing back to rest his forehead against Kaidan’s.
“You do,” Kaidan agreed, and kissed his temple.
-