"We have sufficient facilities to provide you with clothes. There's a Turian colony on Eden Prime, and your people probably won't mind handing over or selling us a complete men's wardrobe." Karin chuckled. "Get some rest, Saren. And remember, you promised to behave normally."

"I will, Doctor. I will." Arterius closed his eyes in agreement for a few seconds. "Maybe when will you let me see Nihlus?"

"I'll allow it. Over time." Chakwas got up from the armchair, moved away from the bed, closing the curtain. "Get some rest."

Chapter 20. tailoring for Saren and Benezia.

Half an hour later, Benezia opens her eyes. Chakwas leans over her:

"How did you sleep, Benezia?"

"Thank you," the matriarch whispers. "It's been a long time since I've slept so deeply. When I was... not me... such a dream was for me an impossible happiness or... an unacceptable luxury. He," The matriarch squinted at Saren's bed, "are you awake?"

"Yes. I talked to him. He's fine, stable."

"And..."

"He really wants to apologize to you, Benezia. He understands that he was wrong about you in many ways," Chakvas said.

"It wasn't him. It was controlled by either a Reaper or a Reaper pilot. So that... I'm even a little surprised that he wants to apologize," the matriarch replied.

"He's a man, Benezia. And for men, it is often customary to act this way in some cases, regardless of race. If they feel that they are wrong, then many of them consider it necessary to apologize clearly, clearly and openly. Especially if the recipient of the apology is a lady." Chakwas did not use the word `woman' and the matriarch liked it.

"Among us, among the Asari... there are many who share the view that we are not `it'. Not asexual, in other words," said the eldest T'Soni.

"A social role, Benezia is not a gender. More precisely, it is determined not only by gender. Among us humans, too, many women do not give birth even once during their lives, but, nevertheless, none of the people cease to consider them women. The right to have a child and the right not to have a child is, first of all, the right of choice for every earthly woman. It is strictly individual and rarely when society or the state directly and harshly demands that a woman fulfill her function as a continuer of the human race in a compulsory manner," Karin said.

"You..." the matriarch began cautiously.

"I'm not married. More precisely, as many of my friends say, I am married to my job," Chakvas grinned. "But it doesn't bother me or the people around me. I am still a woman and I am treated accordingly. They take care of, help, provide, insure, protect."

"You and yourself... As a doctor," the matriarch clarified."

"And this is also present," Karin did not deny. "For my part, I also take care, insure and protect. Both women and men. Of any age and any social status."

"You, Karin, have a... heartfelt interest... in the commander of this frigate," Benezia said.

"Yes," Chakwas sighed. She was beginning to like the insight and experience of the matriarch patient more and more. "You're right. But for now... we are only good, albeit close, acquaintances. David Anderson does not put pressure on me, does not rush to fulfill the standard scenario — engagement, wedding, family, household, children. All this will happen, but now..." After being silent for a few seconds, Chakwas said, "Too much has changed, Benezia, after our ship and crew had to shoot at the Reaper.... I'm afraid that the wedding and everything else... is now being pushed back into the very distant future.

"You have..." the matriarch continued to question.

"There is also a sense of impending disaster, Benezia. A war with such machines. Blood, pain, death. This war... I feel it very acutely now, it will start very soon and it will be... difficult and prolonged. The outcome of this war is now to be predicted..."

"I wouldn't take it. There will be no prisoners in this war, Karin," the matriarch whispered.

"Yes. If indoctrination is used there... there really won't be any prisoners." Chakwas agreed. "The choice will be either enemy or friend. There won't be anything average like prisoners of war or civilian prisoners anymore. There is no sense of preserving the prospect of a reasonable organic changing its position, returning to its former position-status." the doctor put it a little flowerily.

"Then... How and why me and him" a glance towards Saren's bed, which was covered by a screen "Are you back to normal?"

"How — I'm unlikely to be able to answer this question accurately and fully, Beneziya" Chakwas said. "And why ... until the war in the Galaxy began, and I personally have almost no doubt that it will be a galactic war now, by this moment, we, intelligent organics, who are now living, can still choose. And then, when the war with the Reapers, with ships like these, begins... then there will only be an `either-or' choice. Either we defeat the Reapers, or the Reapers defeat us."

"You're right, Karin," the matriarch replied after a pause. "I, Asari, as you people often say, am elderly, but... I don't know the human race well. We are a long-lived race, you are a short-lived one. According to our common racial opinion, there are too many differences between us. But now, most likely, the time is coming when these differences will have to be overcome."

"That's right, Benezia." Chakwas did not nod her head, but Asari clearly understood that the interlocutor really agreed with the expressed opinion.

"It's amazing," Asari listened to her feelings. "I feel... rejuvenated."

"It's quite possible, Benezia," Chakvas said.

"I am... very pleased that the first person I saw after returning to a normal... state was you, an earthly woman. I do not know how I would react if the first person I saw, for example, was Saren, who returned from `there.'"

"We earthlings usually have a woman as a doctor in most cases. For many reasons. Sensitivity, emotionality, tenderness, the ability to empathize, and so on," Chakwas said softly. "That's why most of the medics on warships are women. While most warriors are, of course, men."

"And the one who carried me out of the Reaper on himself... Can you tell me more about him, Karin?"

"I can." Chakwas briefly told Asari about Shepard. The matriarch listened attentively, often closing her eyes briefly in agreement, enjoying the peace and the fact that she was now in complete control of herself, in sole control of both her body and her mind.

"That's the way he is from my point of view, Benezia. John Shepard, Commander of the Special Forces of the Airborne Forces of the Alliance of Systems" I finished my story about XO Chakvas.

"I understand that I'm supposed to be a difficult patient, but can I see his portrait again?"

"Why not?" Chakwas turned one of the medical screens toward Asari. "Look," she typed in a code on her instrument and handed Benezia a small remote control. "Screen control," the doctor explained.

"Yes... I'm used to it. It is necessary... to develop fingers" The matriarch said softly.

Chakwas nodded, moving away from the bed — she sensed that Asari wanted to be alone.

For some reason, Shepard interested her, and Karin suddenly realized that the matriarch... had fallen in love, or rather, had fallen in love with this man. It is quite common after a reasonable organic, risking himself, saved another intelligent organic's life, body, and soul."

Sitting down in her desk chair and turning on the drone, Chakwas already understood: yes, Benezia fell in love with Shepard. A woman can always feel that another woman has fallen in love with a man. That's what nature wanted, that's what evolution ordered. Yes, in her story, Karin specifically drew Benezia's attention to the fact that Shepard loves a girl named Dana and is likely to become her husband and main friend in the future. But would that have been able to stop the Asari matriarch?

Shepard is young, but he is far from young. He has a lot of life experience, and if the Asari matriarch fell in love with him, it means that he is truly unusual, valuable, and important not only to Dana, but also to many other intelligent organics. John risked his essence and his life, pulling the Asari and the Turian out of near-oblivion, so it's not surprising that Benezia wants to repay the debt to his savior. If only she, the frigate's doctor, knew how Saren Arterius would react to Shepard's role in his fate....

Yes, Karin remembered that Benezia was married to Ethita, but... for Azari, as the doctor also understood, such formalities never had a decisive role.

Etita, the Rebellious Matriarch, was absorbed in social activities, so now she rarely and briefly visited Benezia, Liara has not communicated with her mother for fifty years, and she knows for sure about her father, perhaps, only that he is an Asari. Benezia prefers to keep silent about the rest, even when communicating with her own daughter, for reasons she knows exactly and fully.

So if matriarch Benezia T'Soni fell in love with Shepard, then only the two of them can choose how to live their lives. Adults are reasonable, they will figure it out and decide for themselves. — Chakwas thought as she delved into the tabulated and schematized patient monitoring indicators.

The consoles above the doctor's desk clearly indicated that both patients in the Medical Bay were recovering. While Chakwas was filling out the medical forms, she had time to think that for the crew and crew of the frigate Normandy, the confrontation with the Reapers, marking the end of another Cycle, had already begun, had already moved from the field of perspective to the field of reality. Perhaps many Normans already believed that peacetime was over and now it was the turn of wartime. Conventions of perception and understanding...

Yes, the Reaper managed to stop the theft of another Prothean Lighthouse, now this Lighthouse can actually be handed over to the Citadel Council. Karin disapproved of the Councilors' policies on many issues, but she recognized that for the sake of good neighborliness, one could go to the lengths of putting such a valuable artifact in the hands of the Council. And then, of course, specialists, researchers, and scientists will deal with it. Although Chakvas, with the cynicism characteristic of doctors, also assumed that the Lighthouse could be locked in some kind of storage, later simply forgotten. Forgotten for a long time.

Against the background of the collision of the prototype Earth ship with the Reaper, such a prospect no longer seemed unacceptable or impossible: it is unlikely that intelligent organics who inhabited the explored part of the galaxy, now, in the pre-war period, would have enough credits and other resources to dig properly into the depths of this artifact, which, meanwhile, many knowledgeable intelligent organics they called it one of the crowns of Prothean technology.

If Asari was calm, or more precisely, more or less calm about the fact that she was completely naked under a blanket draped over a light wire frame, then Chakwas' attentive gaze did not hide the embarrassment of the Turian. These bird-faced, bony creatures were well versed in matters of gender and had ingrained ideas about what was acceptable and unacceptable in this area. Chakwas saw Saren tense up. It was probably uncomfortable for him to lie naked even in front of a doctor. A man, even if he's an alien.

The shyness indicated by the Turian, who had barely regained consciousness, prompted Chakwas to think about an early solution to the problem of clothing for the patients of the medical bay. Underwear, light clothes, overalls.

Karin did not want to contact the local residents of Eden Prime: the situation around the Reaper lying nearby was too tense and unclear, so such a request would have caused misunderstanding rather than a desire to really help.

Turning on her second laptop, Chakwas called up a list of crew members who could make minimal sets of clothes for unexpected patients in the frigate Cruiser's Medical Bay — in the tradition of the Alliance intelligence fleet, there was a desire for self-sufficiency in most cases.

Of course, one could argue how complete such self-sufficiency was compared to a similar desire, characteristic, for example, of the same imperial Russians, but still such an opportunity should not be ignored.

The ship's VI did not disappoint: a second later, the frigate's doctor had a detailed list in front of her. After fiddling with it, Karin left only five lines on the screen and sent each of these crew members a package of files prepared in advance with a request. The Turian and the Asari were fast asleep, and the diagnostic system showed no signs of deterioration, so they could safely wait for an answer.

Chakwas was used to being alone in her Sick Bay for long periods. To some extent, she agreed with the fact that many Normandieans considered her a "recluse of the Medical Bay," but at the same time she felt and understood that all the inhabitants of the prototype frigate knew that the Medical Bay was a special territory, it was not a place for idle conversations or for an unmotivated stay.

Like most normal, more or less healthy people, the crew of the ship did not feel much desire to become patients or even visitors to the Medical Bay — Karin was used to the fact that she had to force the Normans to undergo regular medical examinations and medical checks, take control tests and samples, and comply with dozens of medical recommendations.

Yes, the Normandy seems to be a warship, but it is also a reconnaissance ship, and among intelligence officers they do not respect soldiering, pacing and respect for honor beyond the minimum necessary limits. Simply put, Karin, of course, could `build' any Norman by virtue of her rank and position, but she rarely used this opportunity — she preferred to persuade and convince, which she could and wanted to do only very effectively.

She didn't want to break the silence of her Medical Bay, so she didn't use any audio or video channels, just sent files and a short text explanation letter. Perhaps, during the few days of the flight, not all Normandians got used to this method of communication with the chief physician of the Medical Bay, but the appearance of Shepard, the attack on the Reaper and the fact that Normandie is still on Eden Prime and this stay is completely out of the bounds of most templates in many ways, gave the Normandians reasons to somewhattake a different look at the situation as a whole and its components.

Few of the inhabitants of the frigate ignored the news of the appearance of intelligent aliens on board the reconnaissance frigate, who found themselves in a difficult situation and were therefore placed in the Medical Bay. Almost all crew members understood: in such a situation, it is very likely that clothes and underwear, shoes, hats, after all the manipulations that are common when a reasonable organic is admitted to a medical facility, especially if this organic was admitted there `by ambulance', will be unsuitable for further use.