(a Not Fic, brought to you by this screenshot I am having feelings about) Victoria left the house when she was 14, and while she and Ellen talked a lot, they never had that mother/daughter relationship, never had that bond. Victoria was two relay jumps away, didn't see Ellen as someone to go to for advice or help or words of wisdom (oddly, Alec - in all his absence - was a closer parent to Victoria than Ellen was; neither of them were close, but he was closer). She had a mother, but not a mom. And then Ellen dies, and Victoria's grief surprises her - she expected to be sad, she didn't expect this all-encompassing blinding grief. She ran off to Omega to avoid it, trouble found her because of it. And then she's back on the Citadel, trying to figure out how she and her brother fit together, trying to reconnect with her father, mostly failing on both fronts. She loves him, but Alec will always be a father, he won't be a dad, no matter what. But then he dies too - dad or father, either way you spin it, the parent she was closest to died, and now they're both dead - and Scott's in a coma and wow but a hug from her mom would be nice. Only she can't have it. And after a while she falls in love with two idiots, and Liam's mom sounds amazing ("She would've fed you and made you tea," he says, "made you watch old series Doctor Who, the classic stuff.") but she's dead and a galaxy away to boot, and Jaal's mom, well, he's got several of those, and they all sound like they'd swarm her with hugs and love the minute Jaal brought her home. But then Sahuna - it isn't just Jaal bringing home his partners, no, Sahuna asked him to bring them home. They've treated her son kindly and with love, she wants to meet the two people who make her son smile like that. And the minute Victoria hugs her, and the second Sahuna hugs her back, Victoria knows that it's a mom hug. It's the mom hug she's needed for months, given by an actual stranger but feels so natural. Sahuna has a resistance meeting, so Victoria keeps herself from crying - though there's a look in Sahuna's eyes, a I will be back later, if you need me look, to which Victoria just smiles - and meets the rest of the family. Sahuna makes tea the next morning, and Victoria tells her about everything she wanted to tell her mom. About Omega, about Doral, about Albert and Penny, about Scott and the Initiative, about Alec, about Liam and Jaal. Heartache and injury, laughter and joy, it all comes out so easily. "I may not be your True Mother," Sahuna says as afternoon drifts into evening, and there are official dinner plans to attend to, "but I could be one of many," she offers. Victoria's voice suddenly doesn't work, and though the angara have a complex body language, the hug she gives Sahuna is clear in any language.
