#jaal

[morimhe]

almost ten years late to this, hi jaal i love you

[wetsocksinbed]

[who-is-riley]

I think Jaal would love Valentines' Day

[anakinzz-stuff]

jaal ama darav and sara ryder - mass effect: andromeda

[hydrahound87]

Somethin somethin somethin at the same damn time

Was told this would do numbers on tumblr so hii lol

[zanecrafts]

Jaal sculpture I made back when Mass Effect Andromeda released.

[thegentlemancollects]

[pathofcomets]

lonely like a castaway

fandom: mass effect andromeda pairing: jaal / female ryder summary: Desire is easy, Ryder. Love is harder. And I want you to want me, but not this way. (Second chance AU). 17.4k words.

“Are you sure, Sara?” Scott asks, because he has to.

Sara shifts, swapping the baby on her other hip, dangling the ugliest, most colourful toy in front of her, her tiny baby arms reaching for it in delight, giggling. Scott can’t help but smile at the picture, even if his sister is rolling her eyes at him.

“Yes Scott, I am sure I do not want to go on dusty Eos and live like our ancestors five thousand years ago.”

“You know that’s not what this is.”

“I do. But I am not the Pathfinder anymore.”

Sara has been a Pathfinder for a total of five and a half years. Even as the weeks, and then months, and then years trickled by, she always convinced herself it’ll be for just one day more, as temporary as the brief moments when she actually feels adequate enough to wear the title. The day she retired was supposed to be the happiest day of her life; she merely felt too tired to properly savour it. 

It is Scott’s turn now. And the difference is that he actually wants this, and desperately enjoys it. She appreciates that in the midst of a relocation preparation, he still has the time to worry about his twin sister. 

“But you are the Pathfinder’s sister.”

“And I can always babysit while you’re on the Nexus, so you and Cora can go on dates,” she says, shifting her attention to the baby in her arms, her niece. “Yeah, can’t I, baby girl?” she says, in baby voice, which sounds ridiculous on a woman as rough-looking as the previous madame Pathfinder. “Of course I can.”

“But I just got you,” Scott says with a deep sigh, but already having accepted her decision. 

“You always had me,” Sara corrects him, because being the galaxy’s hero never made her any less of his older sister. 

Scott steps closer, leaning so that he can place a loud, wet kiss on his baby’s chubby cheeks, making her erupt in laughter. She’s restless now, reaching for her dad, and Sara begrudgingly passes her over. 

She is good with children, a softness that Scott hasn’t seen in forever coming up to the surface; she’s showing a patience reserved only for the youngest, looking happier and kinder than she has in a long time. 

From her armchair, Ellen asks what she always does, with the warmth and age of a grandmother behind her words:

“Don’t you want your own?”

Sara rolls her eyes again. She loves her family, but oh they are overbearing at times. 

“I’m too old for that,” she shrugs, as if she is not merely twenty-nine.

“Sara,” Scott chastises, maybe because he knows that is not an answer to their mother’s questions, and maybe because he knows the answer to that would be a yes. 

“What? I want to raise kids with someone. I don’t know anyone who would be up for the challenge, and it might take years to create that bond. By then, surely I’ll be expired.”

Several years before, knowing his twin’s wish to leave something more behind than galactic peace (someone to enjoy it too, after her death), Scott has proposed co-parenting. 

He has known she will refuse even as he was saying it. His sister is too much of a romantic, too hung up on promises and praises she once received. To have revelled in as much love as she once had and make peace with the lack of it now was something that Sara Ryder simply was not able to accept.

Only her stubbornness, however, is stronger than her yearning.

“Then Scott can give me another grandchild,” Ellen hums, as if it is as easy as wishing.

Scott laughs, but he is beaming with pride as he glances down at his baby girl.

“That is up to Cora, mother,” he says.

***

Sara has gone back to her roots. Her research is not much applicable to this side of the galaxy, but she has the tools and brains for it. In the beginning, she dared to hope that if she is not a Pathfinder, she can simply retire, the ache in her knee not going away anymore, and her scars making it hard to look at herself in the mirror. But she is merely a twenty-something human, and they are trying to build a new world. Everyone has to pull their weight, even the person who, like Atlas, carries it all on her shoulders. 

So she merely tucked her dreams of other planets and lazy, late morning in a deep corner of her heart, and decided on something else to do, but something less bloody this time around. The research into the galaxy’s history was a no-brainer, and she finds the rhythm of studying, creating connections, digging into artefacts so familiar and welcomed. She’s been at it for two years now, and she loves it as much as the first day. 

On the day she says goodbye to her family (Cora having taken Scott’s last name, and Sara gathering a sister in the process), she is due to say hello to a new researcher in her group. She’s never been fond of Nexus, but it is the neutral ground of this galaxy, so she stayed put here. It’s been implied so many times during her years as a Pathfinder, and even afterwards, that she can’t be seen taking any sides. 

What they don’t know is that she has taken it already, but they simply can’t read it in the mere fact that she is studying the Jaardan, the species that supposedly created the angara. 

She is normally the first person in their office. Not today. 

They are not allowed people’s files beforehand, lest they fall into old stereotypes, so Sara Ryder has no idea who her new coworker is. She is not that surprised to see an angara though, because there’s few other species interested in studying the past of a galaxy they don’t call home - not yet, anyway. Sara Ryder cannot wait to be an old lady, and see how the new generation turns out. 

The person is waiting with their back turned to her, and Sara greets them in her softest voice, trying not to startle them; she knows how fast she finds her gun when she is taken by surprise, and she doesn’t want to test an angara’s reflexes; they’re Andromeda’s best fighters after all.

“Good morning.”

The angara turns, and Sara cannot breathe anymore. Because in front of her stands Jaal Ama Darav, whom she hasn’t seen in 5 years. Jaal Ama Darav, who cried the last time she spoke to him. Jaal Ama Darav, whom she loved and maybe still loves, and whose trust she betrayed in front of the entire Nexus.

“I was under the impression you are not working in this office anymore, Sergeant Ryder,” Jaal says, voice all monotone.

Her brain doesn’t catch up with her heart in time.

“You used to call me my love, and now I’m Sergeant Ryder?”

This is the first thing she says to Jaal in five years. He does not find it enlightening in any way, not even slightly funny - and his expression remains the same, stony and unreadable to her. She used to be able to tell it all from being in the same room as him alone. 

“Sara,” he says, low and upset - and that is familiar, at long last, her name on his tongue, and she almost melts to the floor with the relief she feels.

She tries to control her panic, moves so that she unlocks the door, ushering him inside, trying to stop any rumours before they start. The world stopped giving a shit about the two of them as a couple as soon as it became obvious they won’t get back together, but she doesn’t want to have to mitigate a chaos that is not true, that does not exist, if she can help it. The longest she can put off the word getting out that they’re working together again, the easier her life will be. 

Rumours were their downfall in the past too, after all. She knows what’s being said, about Scott’s mission for another colony on Eos, the planet now nothing like the desert she once encountered. Everyone assumed she will go with him, but Sara Ryder is tired of the space. She wants to stop in one place, grow roots, become steady on her feet. The older she grows, the more she understands her father, and the expectations behind their last name. She gave up her title as a Pathfinder years ago, and everyone still sees her as nothing but that, even most of the academics in her office, wandering around star-struck and too afraid to open their mouth even when she asks them too. It’s a weird feeling, that has become familiar, to never be seen fully, to always wear a title. 

Vorn is the only exception, maybe because his kids call her an aunt too. And maybe this is why Sara Ryder has grown her family so big, them the only ones who know the Sara half of herself. 

“Which one is my desk?” Jaal asks, and Sara’s mind screeches to a halt. 

“You’re the Remnant expert,” she says, the dots connecting at last, how Peeebee went to Veold after their last fight, and Jaal too, after she… after everything. How their new specialist delayed his arrival until this specific date, the day when Sara Ryder was supposed to not be on the Nexus anymore. Fuck. This is a mess.

“Jaal, I’m so sorry,” she says, a whisper, and she feels tender like a wound, cannot find a footing while standing in front of him. 

“Which one is my desk?” he asks again, and Sara wants to cry. 

“I didn’t know,” she tries again, and her voice sounds so pathetic even to herself, that Jaal turns to look at her. 

“Obviously. You’ve avoided me successfully for five years.” 

She closes her eyes, as if she’s been physically hit. She can feel his upset, the bioelectricity making the hair rise on her arms, and there is nothing she can do or say that will ever make it better. She takes a steadying breath. They’re supposed to work together, every single day - since this side of universe and time hasn’t figured out the concept of weekends for an office job, not when it had only war before. She supposes, all the better to get over the awkwardness of the moment.

“The one in the corner,” she says, her voice cracking on the last word. 

Jaal shakes his head, disappointed at the change in the subject, though not particularly surprised. He has tried to honour her wishes, to simply disappear from her life for the rest of his, but he forgot the most important lesson in a battle: information is everything. He relied on rumours, comfortable in Sara’s obvious affection for her family. He still cannot understand why she is still here. 

He cannot believe this is the way they see each other again.

He’s busy arranging his things on his new work station, when he hears Sara’s soft, tiny voice. She hasn’t moved yet, left standing in the middle of the room, shocked still by his presence. He supposes he has had some time, some way to prepare. He’s spent nights imagining the Nexus as he remembers it, and trying to strip it empty of all the memories attached to her. He mostly succeeded, as he walked down the path to the research wing, to not think of the second human Pathfinder. But she has no shield built in to keep memory or reality of him away. The awkwardness is strong in the air.

“Jaal.”

He turns, just enough to catch a glimpse at her, returning to his task afterwards, not giving her the patience of gathering her thoughts, not in the way he used to anyway. His heart is hammering in his ears though, imagining the many ways in which she can punish him for being here, even if there is no fault of his own.

“I am sorry. For how I treated our situation before.”

She calls it a situation. It’s been a relationship, it’s been love - and she dares belittle it by calling it any less. 

“I don’t need your apology,” he snaps. “You have nothing to prove to me,” the last sentence kinder, his tone softening.

She knew, even in her most doubting moments, that Jaal Ama Darav wouldn’t hate her. And still, the fear kept her in her place, and five years have passed her by and she only thought in his direction with a bleeding heart. And all this time, he got over it.

He is not haunted by the possibilities, by the what-ifs, by the memories. The better of the two of them, back then and now too.

She is relieved, to find him kind and polite. She is sick to her stomach and disappointed, to find him not screaming at her, not outright refusing her. Because she spent years convincing herself she would deserve it.

Her shoulders ease, some of the tension lifting. There’s laughter at the door, and people come in, greeting them in passing. There’s a mixture of them: the humans brought from their cryosleep late enough that Jaal Ama Darav means nothing to them, the angara having known him for long enough not to bother with his importance. Only Vorn glances between them five times, before eventually taking a seat at his desk, shaking his head.

A message pops up on both their omnitool at the same time, Jaal having been added to the Nakmor family group chat.

Old shy Vorn, made brave by becoming a father and a Nakmor, typed just one message:

Drinks at the week’s end.

It’s not a request. And when Drack replies with an image with an angara weapon pulled apart by one of the babies, Jaal laughs, the sound like a fresh balm on Sara’s heart.

She lifts her head from her desk, looks at him, the way his eyes sparkle with delight and warmth. These were his people too, and in the fallout of Sara’s choices, they picked her. She spends the entire week trying to think of an excuse to get out of it, and she cannot find even one. 

Doesn’t want to.

***

“Did you know?” Jaal asks, Scott’s image not even yet clear on his screen.

“Did I know what?”

Jaal’s expression turns into a frown, which makes Scott’s grin even wider.

“That Sara will be there,” Jaal clarifies.

He was not ready for a reunion, not like that anyway. He remembers the first flash of shock on Sara’s face, before she pulled herself together, looking at him not unlike she did the first time she crashed onto his planet, like she has no idea who he is, or what to make of him. It cut Jaal deeply, how long it’s been, a distance that didn’t feel real exactly because he has kept orbiting around her: her team on his planet, her brother always picking up his calls. 

“Aren’t you tired of checking up on her through me?” Scott asks, because it’s been five years of the angara ending a call with and how is she?

“No,” Jaal answers promptly, still upset at being set up by a meddling sibling. Scott ignores him, smiling serenely still, and in truth, the new Pathfinder has nothing to complain about, a life exactly like the one Jaal wishes for, the only difference being that Jaal’s love refused him.

“Shall we swap places, Jaal? How is she?”

“Alone,” he says, without thinking how that will come across to her family.

But then Jaal remembers: she has been like that even as a Pathfinder, pouring so much care in those around her, walking around empty. She has always been a lonely creature and in his weakest moments, Jaal thought he would be able to pull her out of it. Now, he doesn’t think there is a cure to her nostalgia, he can’t imagine a way to get through her protective bubble anymore.

Scott sighs, closing his eyes as if the words cut at him.

“I know,” he whispers. “So how could I have told you?”

Because then Jaal would have pulled back, found something else to devote his life to, even though angaran origins have haunted him since the day he saved the Moshae. Because if Sara knew, she would have done the same, and her only option would have been the battlefield again. And maybe the years haven’t been necessarily kind to Sara Ryder, but they have built up: she is more softness now, less jittery bones. She doesn’t live on the edge of death, and so she is filled with life. And Jaal remembers again: how she used to refuse to eat after taxing missions, because the psychological shock would have her heaving and throwing up in seconds; how she would bypass sleep, through coffee, through SAM, through Lexi’s medicines. At least she is well: well enough, as well as she can be considering she has been dead three times in two years.

She used to have nightmares about that, back when he still had the privilege of sharing a bed with her. He wonders, how much worse they are now, or if they eased through time. He doesn’t think even Scott Ryder knows the answer to that. There are many things about the previous Pathfinder that the angara hoped and dreamt would become his problems. Problems, but as in: the little work you do for those you love, life that demands to be lived. Problems like massaging a sore hip, finding a contact on Kadara to ship them an endless supply of coffee, being a shoulder to rest on. He had spent so many of those last months on the Tempest dreaming about such a future, working out how to make it real and certain, especially for someone as skittish and uncertain as the human he was in love with. He has spent so many of those last months on the Tempest placing all he had on Sara Ryder, only to have it not matter at all in the end. 

Jaal is made of memories, but they’re rarely his own. Sara Ryder haunts him, and maybe it’s worse than his past lovers, than his lost family: because she is alive. It must show on his face, how he cannot shake off the past, because Scott’s voice is tender as he says his name, drags him back to reality. 

“Are you alright?” Scott asks, and from somewhere close, there is a baby crying, and even as he waits for Jaal’s answer, the man gathers his daughter in his arms, rocking her.

“I don’t know,” Jaal answers truthfully. “It’s so hard to face her, and pretend nothing happened.”

“You don’t have to. Pretend, that is,” Scott clarifies, catching Jaal’s gaze through the screen, and the angara still finds it so strange, this twin that is so much more open and honest than his older sister.

They didn’t get to actually become brothers, not enough time spent together before being brutally cut, but Jaal would automatically respect any person who has it in them to follow in Sara’s footsteps. That’s a shadow bigger than Alec Ryder’s, and yet Scott fills it with the easiest of smiles, and the most hopeful of work. He thinks, maybe it isn’t too late to still carve such a close relation to the human, after all.

“Then what am I supposed to do?” 

Scott shrugs, while simultaneously pulling a face at his now giggling baby. Something tugs at Jaal’s chest, rolling back in a most painful knot. 

“Rebuild on the ruins of what has been.”

And that’s what they’ve all been doing for the past many years, in so many ways: learning new skills, moving planets, fighting battles, making families. It’s an obvious suggestion, but Jaal never thought he could do it, the pain of Sara’s decision -  after all they’ve been through it, the trauma of a new world -  way too much. But the worst has already happened: he’s seen her, and despite his worst fears, Sara Ryder does not look particularly happy with her life, or with her choices. He didn’t feel like threatening her, or demanding an explanation out of her; but neither like smiling or offering any gratitude. But he did want to give her an embrace, ask her how she’s been, invite her out for a meal on the Nexus to catch up, dance around what they’ve been. 

“You ask too much from me, Scott Ryder,” Jaal sighs, because how is he expected to be a brave man after being so surely shut down in the first place.

“Only because I know you’re capable of it, Jaal Ama Darav.”

And Scott smiles at him like they’re closer friends than they are, with the promise of maybe getting there.

***

“Great-grandpa,” Sara says, looking up from her boots to see a pistol pointing at her forehead.

“Come on, silly human. Is this the only way I can get you to join our family dinner?”

Click.

Of course it is empty, but Sara still shakes her head, stubborn in her hiding here, away from the people she loves. 

“Yes.”

Click.

“It’s a Russian roulette, Ryder.”

She laughs - because of course it is, but Drack lowers his arm at long last, a smile at his crooked, scarred mouth too.

“I stupidly thought I’d never see him again. How can I face him after what I’ve done?”

“That was a stupid assumption indeed,” Drack agrees pleasantly. “But I cooked.”

Now that they’re not on the Tempest anymore, it is a rare enough occurrence that Sara cannot deny how badly she wants to taste his food. And Kesh, bless her heart, is so horrible at making human food, that when Drack does it for a change for their family dinner, Sara wants to enjoy it.

“And it is his favourite meal,” Drack adds afterward, and Sara sighs, her entire body freezing in place. “We didn’t stick with you because we love him any less, Sara.”

And Sara knows - from her own experience, on top of that, that there is no other way to love Jaal Ama Darav but utterly completely.

“I am sorry to you as well, Drack. For the aftermath of that moment.”

“He is here now. Why not make amends, instead of ignoring him?”

“Full circle, old man. How do I get the courage to face him?”

Her biggest mistake, asking that question - because Drack grins, almost as if he’s a cat ready to pounce on her.

“Like you did it all the times before, no? One step at a time.”

“If only it was that easy,” she sighs, but when Drack starts towards his apartment, Sara follows.

“It should be. Your species doesn’t live millenniums.”

But Drack can’t understand that this is exactly why it’s harder. If her life is so tiny and short, then the five years she allowed to slip past her is adding up to quite a large gap. All in all, that’s twice the amount of time she did spend knowing Jaal Ama Darav. 

She can’t know who the person sitting across from her at the dinner table is anymore. But as Kesh is filling up their glasses with alcohol, ignoring the fact that Sara arrived so late, and a krogan toddler is squirming himself on her lap, she finds herself wanting to. They’re painting what must be quite a strange image, both of them awkward and stiff still, pointedly avoiding to look at each other. But just as Sara is doing her best to catch glimpses at him when he is not paying any attention to her, she can also feel his gaze on her when she sings a lullaby to the child in her arms, or when Vorn sits next to her, greeting her with half a hug. 

Drack almost throws the huge pot of cooking on the table, with a very long sigh.

“It feels like I am back on the Tempest,” he declares. “You two just making mooing eyes at each other.”

“I don’t think that’s the correct expression,” Jaal says kindly, passing the bowls from the table to Drack to fill them up.

The krogan hits his knuckles with the ladle before using it, for the impertinence of talking back to him. If they were truly five years ago, the angara would have never felt this comfortable talking back to his elder. But the two pains in his old ass relax in their seats, and it seems like some of the tension dissipates. 

Drack never quite understood how and why this separation took place, only that of course it was the idiot Ryder’s idea. If she took a bit more after her father, she would have found a way to make it work, or fight through it, victorious on the other end. But a child’s sin is to be so different from a parent, and a parent’s sin is to never teach their child their most important, painful lessons. Alec didn’t earn anything by moving thousands others across galaxies and time only with the hope of saving Ellen. Alec, despite his war experience, still raised soldiers. Drack still thinks he should have loved that woman, these kids right while they were still together. 

He can’t believe, at times, that somehow he’s the oldest creature in this side of the universe, and he’s been stuck babysitting emotional inepts. If it were up to him, he’d smash their heads together and have them fuck in front of an audience, the krogan way of solving marital issues. He’s grown gentler with age, so the mere threats of violence will have to do.

So Nakmor Drack doesn’t start eating when everyone else does; merely leans more comfortably on the single chair at the head of the table, and starts sharpening the set of eight knives that he always has on him. Kesh’s babies can find five right now, and he delights in how the kids starvingly stare after his movement, trying to catch where exactly the next shining toy is coming out from. 

And Kesh is his first baby, because she makes it not noticeable at all exactly how worried she is about  the two guests at their dinner table, still not talking to each other, or actually looking at each other. The conversation flies over their head at most times, or it involves just one at a time. 

Head knocking and fucking. Surely better than this? 

Sara Ryder has long hair now; such a simple thing, but the most obvious one. Jaal didn’t really realise exactly how long until he’s seen her in-person, the ends of her hair brushing her lower back with every faint movement. Most people wear their heart short, practical considering all the fighting, but maybe this is another testament of the way in which Sara Ryder grew softer, and different. She is - and Jaal is upset to admit it, even to himself, just as beautiful. Made even more so, maybe, by the longing he’s felt for her all these years. He has yet to feel the tinge of heat in his body with any other human, and he feels ruined and marked by her, made his in ways that are too complex for time to undo. He feels the overwhelming, stupid urge to just ask her for a brawl, maybe in physically fighting, finally managing to fight his emotions for her, most of which are so unfairly positive. 

He should hate her. But he can’t, not when she looks like she barely belongs, in this place that is undoubtedly hers. How can she not see it? How can she walk around places bearing her name and her mark, and still look like she would rather be anywhere else? Her body language is so closed off that his arm fell half-way through a greeting, afraid he seemed maybe too friendly. Maybe she hates it here because she hates him. 

Vorn knows awkwardness in love; he pretty much wrote the rulebook for it. But Vorn also knows that it only takes one moment of courage, or just a good enough coincidence. So he merely shoves the dirty plates in Jaal’s arms, and turns to gesture with his head towards the kitchen, where Sara has already started washing the dirty glasses. 

He is silent when he enters the tiny room, tinier than even the one they had back on the Tempest. Sara jumps, just a little bit startled, when he sets the stack of plates and bowls on the counter next to her. She’s not close to tripping, but Jaal’s hand is still around her elbow, maybe in a gesture that is supposed to calm her fear, but instead it makes her heart beat even harder in her chest. She looks up at him, and they are so close now, that her chest rising with every breath almost touches his arm. She can make the little freckles on his cheekbones, darker blue against his skin. 

Jaal doesn’t look away, so she takes it as permission, and she looks at him enough to get her fill: his scarring a little bit fader, laugh lines more obvious around his dimples, a weariness in his eyes when looking at her that hasn’t been there since the day she crashed on Aya. She wonders if he is doing the same inventory on her: the ways in which she’s gotten older.

“So,” Sara says, her hands stilling in the soap water of the sink, too busy looking at Jaal.

They are alone for the first time, the entire apartment so quiet now that the babies have been put to sleep. Somewhere, Drack sits in an armchair sipping at his sixteenth drink, passing some wisdom or another onto Vorn, whom he still holds some weird distaste for getting together with Kesh the way he did. His granddaughter is probably back in her office, still so much work to be done, these domestic moments still stolen against the galaxy’s needs - even when they are so much more frequent now. 

“So,” he repeats, the slightest tilt of a smile on his face, and Sara can’t believe she caught that expression, softer and easier than she deserves.

“You suit this,” she says, landing on a somewhat safe sentence, relatively a compliment.

Jaal turns to look towards the living room, the picture so effortlessly domestic. He is a part of this now, invited and respected, and he is grateful for it. Nexus is the safest place in the galaxy, so it’s been here that the repopulation efforts have bloomed the most. The angara can’t quite forget the fear of being exterminated, and his family still hasn’t welcomed a new member yet, not in the form of a new generation, though he remembers he is calling Aksul a brother now, through Teviint’s marriage. He’s read the reports, but he hasn’t afforded his heart to believe it, that the future is here now, until he actually got to see it. 

“I know,” he agrees, and the silence that comes next is not that uncomfortable, even with the knowledge, on both sides, that had they been together all this time, maybe this would have been their life too. They are compatible after all.

“Do you want it?” she pushes on, but she cannot look at him anymore as she says it.

He turns his face towards her, but takes a step away. 

“No, don’t think it will happen, now. You?”

“That’s not what I asked,” she corrects gently, taking a step away as well, wiping her hands on a piece of cloth now that she is done washing the dishes. “The older I get, the more I want this.”

Not even the children or the dinners or the tedious dishes. But a place to call home; even better, a person all hers, to return to at the end of every single day. A place where others can come, and know her loved and taken care of, so that she can take care of them in turn. She feels weakened by the acknowledgement of that need, exposed by the raw want in her heart. 

Jaal shakes his head, but doesn’t say anything else. The lull in conversation stretches, only the sound of Vorn doing his own cleanup in the other room interrupting it. She pushes against the counter and moves around his body, ready to leave. He doesn’t budge, lets her struggle to not touch him, feeling her warmth against his field. He stays rooted in the spot long after she’s said her goodbyes.

She doesn’t bite her nails anymore. Jaal likes to believe that it is because the weight on her shoulders lightened, but even he is not that much of an optimist. She wears colour on her fingers now, a deep purple that reminds him of home: not Aya, but Havarl. 

***

Nexus loves Sara as much as Aya loves Jaal. He looks around this strange, so human place, and sees only her: there are murals drawn in her liking, and there are results of missions he’s been there for, and…. and so many children. Some are older, probably fresh out of cryosleep still, but then there are so many babies, babbling round masses, utterly hairless, screaming and crying and laughing, and there are proud, happy parents.

Jaal knows this is also a result of the peace they brought, probably the most important one. They can’t imagine all the future there is to be, they need children for that. And he remembers how impossible it has seemed, when he first interacted with humanity, that they will survive long enough for this. That they will have the stability required for something as messy and needy as babies. 

Back in the day when planning for the future was something they were doing together, Jaal learnt of Sara’s wish to have her own children. It’s been a month of working together and just polite greetings, and he’s yet to be met with the proof of someone in her life. She’s the first one in and the last one out, many times hours after anyone else in her team. Jaal knows because he sometimes passes this hall, and the lights are still on in the building. She lives for her work; not so unlike how she was back when she was Pathfinder instead. 

He cannot walk these Nexus halls without thinking how different life would have been if Sara hadn’t broken his heart. But it’s been a long time, he tries to justify it to himself. But she’s not antagonising him in any way, and he’s been expecting it, at least a little, as he settled into his new role. She’s been nothing but utterly professional, and their coworkers haven’t found it strange, so it must be how she simply is, these days.

Too changed, clearly not his.

But Jaal cannot help the curiosity about this version of her either. 

Sara tells no one about the storm brewing in her chest. Or the numbness in her soul. That doesn’t mean people cannot see it, but she overcompensates. Sends a gift package to Cora, filled with flower seeds from Havarl and toys for her niece. She ignores Scott’s calls, knowing she’s too transparent for him, and forces him to text her instead. She meets Ellen for lunch, when she visits Nexus. 

Ellen has never met Jaal, of course. It took Sara three years to bring her mother back to them, once she found out she is still… alive. By then, she was ready to give up the Pathfinder title. Scott was engaged. The biggest and most important part of Sara’s life, and Ellen has missed it all. In the aftermath of that last big kett fight, after she broke Jaal’s heart - and hers in the process - Sara has cried bitter tears on her own, wishing against all hope that she had her mom again.

Now that Ellen is here, smelling of baby powder and looking younger than she should, Sara cannot find the words to explain what she’s been through. The worst of it, the pain, is easy enough, for she has the scars for it. But how can she recall the joy as well? The love?

But Sara is Ellen’s daughter - she doesn’t need the words at all.

“Do you like Jaal, Sara?

“I don’t even know him,” the anymore stays unsaid. 

“Would you like to?” Ellen pushes, kind, fiercely believing in the worthiness of her child.

“I don’t think I have the right to anymore.”

Sara is baffled, because Ellen starts laughing at her words.

“What right did our family have to do anything?” she asks back. “Alec to hide me away, for a future chance at life?” And Ellen’s voice softens around the shape of her husband’s name. “Scott to try and sacrifice himself for you? You to build the basis of an entire galaxy? Don’t make me remind you that you are a Ryder. Just go after something if you want it. Do you - want it?”

But Sara has stopped wanting things that day. She simply went with the motion, did what was expected of her, settled down in some semblance of peace, the only way she knew how. She knows she doesn’t want the Jaal of five years ago, because she is not the Sara of those days either. She knows she sees parts of that younger Jaal in the man who’s now in front of her, and she almost wants to play spot the difference, knowing that in the process she will understand and respect him even more. 

She can’t help it; she’s a Ryder after all. For the first time in five years, she wants something again. She knows this might be the most difficult thing she’ll ever have to do, and she knows she’ll spend a lifetime proving to herself she deserves it. 

The detour on her way back from lunch doesn’t make a lot of sense for her mother, but she’s patient to her child’s whims, made more so by having a grandchild. The man she sees noticing her daughter’s return is much easier to figure out though. Sara’s clearly taken aback, because normally around this time, he’s out with some of their colleagues. She’s slow in recovering, and Ellen smiles, as she feels the laps of bioelectricity against her toes. She can’t understand them, but there’s enough SAM in her to recognise it and she wonders if it is just shame that keeps Sara from noticing it, or if Jaal is so attuned to her child, knows her so well, that he can simply keep it from her. 

Before Sara can open her mouth and say her goodbye, Ellen turns towards the angara, the only other person in the building. Jaal blinks up at this woman he knows only from pictures, though it takes a few seconds to connect the dots.

“I’m Sara’s mother,” she says, with a smile that is as sharp as it is kind; Jaal recognises more of Scott or Alec in her, rather than Sara, this at least a game he is familiar with, reconstructing a family out of its pieces. “Have you had your break yet?”

He shakes his head, not understanding why this question is relevant.

Ellen raises an arm, stopping her daughter in place, mute and with eyes so wide open that she’d look comical, if Jaal understood the full extent of what is going on.

“Then accompany me for my afternoon coffee,” she clarifies, using the same arm to make a sweeping gesture that he stiffly follows, getting out of his desk.

It’s part angaran culture, with its respect for elders, and part the force of this woman’s personality, who has probably never been denied anything in her entire life. Sara is stuck in her spot, watching them leave, and she wants to curse.

She settles on taking every single item on her desk and smashing it against the nearest wall. It doesn’t even make a dent, nothing breaks - and when her colleagues return, she’s on her knees gathering each thing off the floor.

***

“I’m not sure this is appropriate,” Jaal says, stopping three steps out the building, far enough that they won’t be seen from the inside. 

He’s kind when he moves Ellen’s hand away from where she grabbed his arm, in a forceful attempt to herd him in her wanted direction. He has some experience dealing with Ryders, and Ellen’s smile grows. The first sound of a throw is muffled and distant, but he still winces, because he can tell where it is coming from.

“That has nothing to do with me,” she says, as if this is not an ambush, as if he didn’t have to beg his own mother, in tears, not to harass Sara into an explanation.

“You must not think much of me, Ellen, if you think I will believe that,” and slowly and reluctantly, he follows the woman again.

He’s braver than her daughter, she’ll give him that.

“I wanted to see the man Sara loves, not the stories and not the hero.” 

His translator must be broken, surely. There is no reason for her to use the present tense, to so cruelly twist a knife in a half-healed wound, just to see it bleed all over again. Ellen feels the smell of orchids up her nose, for no reason, his hope sickly, combined with a burn down her throat, as he tries to stifle it down. 

“And?” he asks, at long last, as they settle on a bench in a discreet place, in an area that mimics gardens on Aya.

Ellen shrugs. “You’re just a man. You can fail and be failed just like anyone else.”

He doesn’t think the assessment is quite fair. He doesn’t know anyone else who has had their heartbreak televised, but he bites his tongue and says nothing. When he imagined this moment too, it was very different. He didn’t think he’ll have to ever see her, now, to be honest. She’s not quite what he imagined, but that explains why her kids are such good fighters, they’ve had it in their souls when they were born.

“But I hope next time people show you who they are, you will believe them.” 

And with that, she goes. There’s some trick in language with that as well, and of course he thinks back to Sara, to their decisive moment. She has told him she doesn’t love him anymore, and he believed her, because Sara never lied. 

When he returns to his desk, after way too long time spent staring at space and lost in thought, there’s his favourite snack box waiting for him next to his screen, something that until two weeks ago was available only from Aya. His hand trembles as he reaches for it. There’s only three people in this universe who know this about him.

*** 

Discoveries in their field increase, as more and more colonies are being built across planets, as atmospheres stabilise, as exploration unfolds. Very few are relevant in their particular area of research, and for the most part, they just get shipped interesting excavation finds, or they travel to locations of known key locations. This is the first time something like this has come across her desk, and she doesn’t even read the full report before accepting the case.

“They think it’s an active remnant,” she presents it to her team.

“Ah,” Jaal says, a deep sound in his chest, allowing her to detail what that means, even when he knows it from first-hand experience.

Sara turns towards her team of studious academics, and he sees the resolve build within her, sees how she stands different from them. This is the real reason why she has been allowed to work on this ; the coincidence of it and how quickly her approval came through all making sense now. Even she’s not that amazing that the angara would let her touch their history with all her bloodied hands. 

“So then they need a SAM implant,” she supplies. 

The realisation falls immediately, how there are only technically six people in the entire galaxy who are capable of interacting with this relic.

“And someone skilled enough to survive its fallout,” Jaal adds, because this office is blessed enough to have a Pathfinder of their own.

“Or idiotic enough to attempt it,” Sara says, the ghost of a joke at the corner of her mouth, even when it is at her own expense.

“I’ll join you,” Jaal says, not leaving any space for an argument. “For old time’s sake,” he adds, just to make sure; he wouldn’t survive the refusal.

What a painful sentiment: for what has passed, and for all the ways it deserves to be honored. Sara doesn’t understand how the nostalgia translates to a remake of the past, but she doesn’t have it in her to push back. She just wants to close her eyes, wash the years off her back, and imagine they are back on the Tempest, universe still unknown.

“If you want,” she says, because she hasn’t yet learned how to refuse Jaal Ama Darav.

There’s plenty of confusion among her other workers, about how exactly these two connect, but most brush it off: Sara has been a Pathfinder for long enough to know every single person alive upon first contact. The only ones remaining doubtful are the angara, who can feel Jaal’s currents, even as he attempts to stifle them. There’s so much sorrow in it, that they can feel bitterness on their tongue, tears spring to their eyes. 

“I do,” and despite everything, Sara is so happy with this admission.

If it is because Jaal sometimes misses the adrenaline of a fight, or the rush of being at her side - he doesn’t seem inclined to hint. And she cannot tell anymore.

The youngest of angara stares after her figure for a long time after she leaves the office, to request equipment, unlock her weapons from their cache. Then she turns to Jaal.

“You were in the Pathfinder’s team, weren’t you? Back when she was Pathfinder?” 

Jaal closes his eyes, allows his emotions to wash over her for just a moment, leaving her with legs like jelly at the intensity, confusion of it all, that an admission more than anything else. 

“Last time she tried to do this on her own, she almost didn’t return. Don’t let her.” 

Last time she tried to do this with him, she died.

“I didn’t think she’s so loved,” he muses out loud, but the angara huffs her chest with a pride Jaal didn’t expect.

“She’s like a wild pyjak. Get too close and she’ll scare off. But she’s done a lot for us, and she’s been nothing like the humans we expected.”

Jaal knows. She’s stolen the ground under his feet too, when he first met her. 

***

He doesn’t mean to catch her as she’s still putting her gear on, he’s given her enough time, but the ship is small and his guns are in the room, so it’s all an accident when the door slides open. Sara’s holding her top in her hands, ready to pull it on, in the reverse of a movement that Jaal, admittedly, thinks of way too much. There’s suddenly too much skin, too close, too real, and he fixes his gaze stubbornly on the ceiling, unable to say anything just yet though. 

He fears the fact that the image will be imprinted in his mind forever is painfully obvious on his face, maybe even in his currents. The bioelectricity makes her hair immediately frizzy, in the small space of the room, and she opens her mouth, wanting to speak, not being able to. Sara takes one big breath, trying to stabilise herself.

“It’s okay,” she says, her voice actually sounding at ease, and Jaal risks a glance at her, where she is still wearing only her bra, and his face does the most beautiful thing, which Sara desperately missed, and goes several shades of purple. “Nothing you haven’t seen before.”

It’s the wrong thing to say, because now the room feels ten degrees warmer, and Jaal’s eyes, emboldened by her words, travel from her face, down her body. She wonders, self-consciously, if he still likes… at least some of what he sees. But then, he says:

“Stars, Sara,” in the most breathless voice, one that haunts her dreams, and she wants to cry and she wants to kiss him, and she doesn’t doubt that maybe he wants her, just a tiny bit.

She pulls her shirt down, fumbles with the clasps of her armour. He doesn’t move to help her; their flight is so long that there’s plenty of time for her to get nervous ten times more, and still have enough time to pull herself back together again. 

“Do you know truth or dare?” she asks, as she clicks pieces into place.

“If we do this,” Jaal says, seeming unbothered as he loads his gun, checks his ammo. “I want you to be honest. No jokes as a deflection, no running around the bush.”

He quite literally asks for the impossible, he thinks. Sara Ryder has been avoiding all real, close connection for the entire period they’ve shared life on the Tempest, every glimpse he’s had of her carved with patience and curiosity, and later on, love.  

A full body tremble is the only reaction she gives before settling, miraculously.

“Okay. Honest.”

And Sara doesn’t lie. So of course, she picks the truth, though Jaal is unsure if that is not the biggest dare.

“Why the Remnants studies?” he asks. 

He remembers everyone’s curiosity when her ‘retirement’ project was announced. The Moshae was the only one who didn’t seem surprised, and he’s not sure he was, either.

“Because of you,” she says, simply.

She has held him in her arms, as he cried over the origin of his people, as he understood where in the makings of the universe he belongs. And that was as much of a defining moment for her as it was for him, for it brought them in the exact same place.

She lifts her chin, daring him to say anything about her choices, but he can’t, not truly. Because it means she cared, in some way, years after he thought she stopped. 

“Truth,” he replies in kind, and Sara closes her eyes in thoughts.

“Do you hate me?” she asks, because even now, she wants to be absolved.

“I wish I could.”

***

It’s the smallest their team has ever been on a mission dealing with remnants. Historically, they’re fucked - but in saving the galaxy, Sara has decided she’s strong enough to defy death. Three times over, the magical number in all her favourite stories. Now, she doesn’t know how to be scared; scared of this at least, battle and hard work.

Though it’s never easy, figuring out how natural it is to hold a gun in her hand. 

“Welcome back, Jaal Ama Darav,” is the first thing SAM says, once comms are open.

And Jaal smiles, and Sara can hear the fondness in SAM’s voice too, that another casualty of her heart’s war. She’s growing tired of all the people she has failed. 

Their descent is slower this time around, as they take a scholarly interest in what they’re seeing. Also, partially, due to the difficulty: the stairs are steep and long, more of a climbing exercise than anything else. The silence falls between them, but for the first time in a long time, not uncomfortable. 

“Back in the day, we couldn’t even imagine a far enough future to think this would be important,” Sara muses out loud, as she scans one of the pillars before interacting with it.

This is new too, the fact that she doesn’t run head-first into danger. Back in the day, she would have simply smashed her body against things, see what sticks, broken bones shrugged off, cuts ignored. Jaal knows himself how many wounds he has tended on her body, and in the slip of skin he’s accidentally noticed not too long ago, he has also seen the ones he didn’t, the scars she got since, without him by her side. He almost wants to ask SAM, if not having him made her more reckless or more cautious instead, but he doesn’t think he can survive the answer, regardless what it might be.

“I could,” he says simply instead, and Sara flinches as if she’s been hit.

A reproach, in such a short statement. Because Sara has lived in the moment, too scared and too hurt and too burdened to imagine what could come next. Jaal has been the dreamer, and even in the midst of all their battles, he has hoped for better for his people, and better for himself. Those wishes included her, at the time, and she knows it: they fell asleep multiple times mapping all possibilities of what if. Almost all, of course. He never dreamt they’ll be like this, not strangers but so utterly separated. 

“I truly am sorry, Jaal,” she says, voice low, back turned to him, and he feels the anger rise, such unfamiliar emotion, never in relation to her.

“But not sorry enough to do anything about it.”

It’s a challenge and a request. It leaves her frozen in the spot, too scared to move for fear that the truth will be leaking out of her, and she doesn’t know if she can allow it. 

“Not yet,” she settles on, a challenge and a request.

And because she feels cornered, she simply slams her palm against the pillar, bringing forth anything but this. The ground trembles under her feet, that at least muscle memory and familiarity, and the only conversation that ensues is the bullets shot at the remnants. 

She almost forgot how good it is, how safe she feels when she has him at her back. You don’t become the poster boy of the Resistance without being a magnificent fighter.

He almost forgot what a quick learner she is, because she has gotten better since he last fought by her side. Even with a couple years of research under her belt, you don’t retire as the Pathfinder without being a spectacular fighter.

But even so, there’s too many remnants, these types of battles normally fought with more people. It goes on for too long, up until they can hear each other’s laboured breaths through the comms, their muscles burning. He doesn’t slip, he doesn’t miss - he’s ready to fully accept the hit, for a chance at taking down the enemy.

It takes only a second, only the slightest push of extra adrenaline from SAM, but instead of the laser hitting him, it hits Sara, who has pushed herself between Jaal and the remnant. He does a perfect shot, taking it down, and the silence is eery and stunned, her body too close to his, the reality of what she’s done too much.

Her palm is pressing against her wound, red seeping through her fingers. Jaal feels a bit light-headed, as he tries to push her hand away. She refuses to budge, pressing harder instead, even as she stumbles to the nearest wall, leaning her back against it. 

“I need the pressure,” she mumbles, shy, not wanting to admit how bad she’s actually been hit. 

She closes her eyes against the wave of pain. It is just pain, and this kind eventually goes away. She can’t look, hiding away from his touch, as his hands explore her thighs and waist, trying to find the pocket where her medigel is. He makes quick work of it, not lingering for a moment more than necessary, though it takes him two tries to undo the opening, his hands trembling.

She smiles when she notices it, though maybe she should start worrying if she’s hallucinating.

“I promised,” she says, as he applies the gel on her wound, a relieved hiss the only reaction, as the skin will slowly try and rebuild itself. 

“Keep her talking,” SAM instructs, because now the crash will take her out if they don’t push Sara harder, hard enough that she has no choice.

She chuckles, pushes a hand at her fly-away hair, her braid coming undone. 

“I promised that I’ll never let you get hurt again. Not if I’m there.”

His entire body stiffens. That was a lifetime ago, back when he got his face scar, back when they didn’t even mean anything more than friends to each other. But she has indeed promised - threatened rather, that she will never again do nothing when he’s in danger. Even if he asks her to. There was no way they could have avoided this situation, besides not being here in the first place. He can’t believe she can be like this: so infuriatingly loyal even as she betrayed him, so easily lovable even as his heart keeps breaking because of her.  

“Before that last fight, you told me to live on if…” he can’t even say it, still, years after the fact, and not in this faintly lit hole in the ground, so familiar, with her still bleeding. “But how do I move on when you’re alive and well and the most important person in the galaxy, just not mine? It’s been very difficult, Sara.”

She doesn’t know that every single time she briefed Evfra, he was in the same room, just out of view, bleeding out his heart in currents Evfra accepted to bear, if only to have Jaal hear her voice, heal some of his longing. 

“I know,” she says, voice too faint for his liking.

Her hand settles on his shoulder, the first time she willingly touches him since their reunion, in a kind gesture of comfort, though it is unclear if it’s meant for him or for her. Her fingertips tickle with his bioelectricity, and she smiles at how easily she recognises it. 

“You need to wrap her wound,” SAM asks. “I can pump some drugs to keep her going for the day, but it’s taking too long to stop the bleeding.”

Exactly because she has SAM, she doesn’t carry a full medical supply on her. Too reckless, still. And he knows, because he went through most of her inventory. He moves to do what needs to be done, but Sara’s hold tightens at his shoulder, pushing him away.

“Don’t. I’ll be fine,” and she tries to push forth, prove it as well, but her wound gashes in new rivulets of red, and Jaal feels a bit light-headed at the sight. 

She stumbles, and Jaal catches her, allowing her to rest some of her weight against him as she regains her footing and control, but he keeps at his task too, ripping a long strip of his rofjinn material, the only appropriate material for SAM’s request.

Sara’s growing frantic now, trying to stumble away from him, slapping away at his hand whenever he gets close to her wound.

“Don’t!” 

“You’re on a mission, Ryder,” he says, the voice being one of the Resistance fighter, not of Jaal Ama Darav. “Act like it.”

And she slumps, chided, and lets him come close, apply another layer of medigel, tie the material around her torso, using as much force as he can, with no complaint from either human or AI, which means it should be fine. Sara doesn’t want to look at him, doesn’t want to look at her wound, doesn’t want to acknowledge SAM giving her calming drugs as well. When she stopped being Pathfinder, she spent a month trying to wean off all the drugs she was addicted to, and she doesn’t want to have to do it all again, sweaty forehead glued to the hard surface of the bathroom, shivers wrecking her body even when dressed in five layers, body heaving and throwing up. She feels similarly challenged now, by the fact she is wearing his family’s colours, even in such a situation.

Have they continued their relationship, she would have eventually been welcomed and entitled to wearing his rofjinn, simply for belonging. Like this, it feels like an insult, and she doesn’t want to think what goes through Jaal’s mind.

So, she thinks of something else. She turns towards the fallen remnant and starts scanning.

Jaal thinks the colour suits her.

***

Back on the Nexus, despite it being the middle of the day, she goes to the infirmary first. It’s been a while since they got used to the sight of her, but the medics fall into the usual pattern, and simply shove her in a corner, drawing a curtain for privacy, and simply hook her to the medicine. Given a couple of hours, she’ll be as new. She falls into the bed with a sigh, closing her eyes, rubbing her thumb between her eyebrows, trying to wade off an oncoming migraine. 

“I’ll need to report this to the Pathfinder,” SAM explains, kindly, trying not to startle.

Sara ignores the attempt, and shots up on the bed, ignoring the sharp stab of pain, now that the drugs have worn off on the travel back.

“Don’t you dare!” she whines. “He’ll just hurry here to complain about my decisions.”

“And you wouldn’t deserve it?” SAM challenges back, and she frowns up at the ceiling, though of course that’s not where he is situated. 

“It’s just a graze,” she mumbles, pushing more. “I’ll be healed by evening, and ignoring that, the mission was a success. He can read my reports, like everyone else.”

“Ignoring the fact you’ve been hurt?”

The AI’s voice is so gentle, it almost brings her to tears. Because he is the only one who knows exactly how many times she’s ignored that before, how many times she’s hidden the pain from everyone, particularly those she cares for the most.

“It doesn’t matter,” she says, stubbornly, though there is a sash around her body that says it does.

“It matters to them,” SAM points out as well, but she simply leans back in the bed and ignores him, too.

It wouldn’t help, making her family worry about her well-being. She’s supposed to be fine, now with her desk job and retirement, and bringing up a random wound would just stress them out, have them mess up their week’s plans just to check up on her. And she’s fine, several hours in the infirmary and she’d be as new, maybe just with a new scar to show for it. 

Same for her colleagues. It’s the reason why she is the one who goes out there on other planets and scavenges for pieces, and interacts with whatever’s left: she can take it. There is a reason they picked a scholarly interest, and she is not about to drag them into fights she can win by herself. It’s more difficult, sure, but Sara Ryder has been doing difficult things for over half a decade now. They don’t deserve to feel bad about the choices they have made, so Sara is happy to cover that gap.

She pushes her palm against her closed eyes, pressing hard, trying to make the dark even darker, because as Jaal was dressing her wound, he was praying under his breath. For her.

***

Two hours later, Sara Ryder strolls into her office as if the whole thing didn’t even happen. No one is stopping their work to look at her, and no one is staring at her walk, just a tiny bit stiffer than usual. She took off the cloth of Jaal’s rofjinn, hid it in her jacket’s pocket, and changed out of her under-armour clothing. And he didn’t tell on her, the only thing shared with the team was clearly their research.

She turns on her feet, finding his gaze already on hers, the only person in this room who is checking for any sort of weakness or reaction. And because she can’t bear to hold a smile at him when he’d recognise it as fake, she does something impulsive instead.

“Shall we call it a day and all go for drinks?” she says, loudly, ending her sentence with an enthusiastic if not awkward clap to accentuate her suggestion.

It’s a relatively small team, Jaal their newest sixth member. But when everyone turns off their screens at the same time, it can be quite loud in a small office space. Sara grins, this a truer reaction, as she falls into step with the other human in the team. She’s newly taken out of cryo for the purpose of this research, and so they’re not starstruck around the Pathfinder. It’s a bit like hearing about the wild youth of your parents, far and strange and unbelievable enough that it doesn’t register as the person in front of you. The more time will pass, the more this will be the reception she’ll get wherever she goes, and Jaal notices, how this frees her, always just a tiny bit more.

Hours later, as two of their coworkers battle it out over karaoke on the bar, Sara sits next to Jaal, the only one old enough to not join the shenanigans. When, exactly, have they gotten old like this? 

“Were we ever like this?” Jaal asks, seemingly thinking about similar things.

Sara takes a sip of her drink, though she has lost count, particularly since she swapped to the hard stuff. 

“Nah, that was always Peebee,” she says.

And there’s something different in the way Jaal smiles now, a softer turn to his currents, and Sara knows that in the aftermath of saving the galaxy, the asari picked him. And despite it not being her, she’s glad he had someone next to him too.

“Truth or Dare?” she asks, and another sip, this time for bravery.

“You first,” he says, nodding his head in her direction.

It’s not something as crass as ladies first, Jaal would never. It’s about her, him always putting her first, allowing her the first word. She wonders how different that day five years ago would have been, if Jaal cared just a tiny bit less about her, and spoke his thoughts and feelings first. 

“Truth”, she says, because she’s turned into a coward since.

“If you could go to the past and do things differently, would you?”

He can see in her face, that the answer is a resounding yes. He knows exactly the tension points too: protecting Scott better, punching director Tann once or twice, saving the original Pathfinders quicker, not breaking Jaal Ama Darav’s heart. But then the steely resolve washes over her, and he can see what a pointless question it’s been, after all; that he expected a bit too much honesty from Sara Ryder.

“No.”

She downs the rest of her drink at once, signaling for another, returning the game question back on him while she waits. 

“Do we need to pretend?” Jaal asks, with a small laugh. “We know we’ll always pick truth, every time.”

“Why do you care?” she challenges, hating to be so transparent, hating that the only way they can talk nowadays is by pretending it’s a game, a layer of protection around their heart, words which they pretend they can take back, they didn’t mean, in this setting.

“I’m trying to see if you’re worth it.”

And Sara stops, like a deer in the headlight, because she knows herself unworthy. 

“Worthy of what?” she whispers, hand moving to her lips, the bad habit of biting her nails returning with the anxiety of the question.

Jaal is kind when he grabs her wrist, tenderly placing her hand back on the table.

“Not your turn,” he chides softly. “Did you lie? It kind of defeats the point of the game.”

“I did,” she agrees, and Jaal feels his chest being torn open, his hold tightening just the tiniest bit against where her pulse is fluttering at her wrist, before letting go altogether.

“Don’t do it again,” he says, softly. “Please.”

And she nods, even though it is not his turn, even though it is not a dare, because she will never again refuse Jaal Ama Darav anything.

“How many partners have you taken to your bed since?” he asks all suddenly, and Sara chokes on her drinks, shocked at how direct he is.

But that shouldn’t be a surprise, she knows him after all. And he knows her, and he knows that despite the embarrassment, she will live up to his expectations, and answer. It helps that there is krogan alcohol involved, anything too much easily blamed on that instead, and not on the canyon of hurt between them. 

“None,” she mumbles, her cheeks darkening even more, eyes searching his. “Why, did you?”

“It has been five years,” he replies, and holds her gaze. 

She nods, understanding, not looking away.

Jaal feels his heart growing in size in his chest, painfully pressing against his ribcage. 

“Do you want to fuck me?” he asks again, and his knee brushes against hers under the bar table, and she can hear nothing of the poorly sung song, or understand anything of the setting they’re in. It’s too much, it’s too soon, and she doesn’t know what to do.

She doesn’t answer him, but they’ve fucked enough time for him to tell the signs: her dilated pupils, her faster breathing, the blush on her cheeks, the squirming in her chair. Even the fact she can’t look away.

“It’s easy to be wanted,” Jaal says, because they’ve been together, he knows how she tastes, she’s seen his body glow and hum and tremble in the midst of ecstasy. It’s nothing weird in seeing each other again, and wanting some form of each other back, not when it is the sexual one. He is correct of course, because the years have been kind to Jaal, and he looks barely changed. Not in the way she’s been - and she noticed him catching the extra scars, or his fingers trying to reach the ends of her braid, now down to her waist. It would be such an easy solution to their discomfort as well. 

“But I don’t want to fuck you, Sara.” The words, like a bucket of cold water, sober her up immediately.“Desire is easy, Ryder. Love is harder. And I want you to want me, but not this way.” 

That scares her, those words: because what would Jaal’s revenge look like, if he gets to swap places, if he gets to hold her heart in his hand, with no shields to protect it? 

***

She’s so drunk. Twice in a day having to lean on Jaal to not break her nose against the ground, and he’s so gracefully accepting of his burden. Her room is on a different side of the Nexus than it used to be; of course, she is not Pathfinder anymore. Jaal asks SAM for directions, because he trusts the AI more than he trusts Sara at the moment, not after he so clearly hurt her back. He didn’t want to, but it is so easy to remember why he should hate her, when she’s so obviously sad and repentant in front of him. He has wanted and prayed that if she so clearly cut off his chance at happiness, at least she allowed it for herself. It seems quite clearly she didn’t. Sara didn’t even try to move on, when what Jaal did first, months after their breakup, when he rejoined Evfra’s ranks, was to fuck his way through his teammates. So it’s easy, pushing against a bruise, if she never attempted to heal in the first place. 

He shakes at her shoulder with his hand, and Sara blinks up at him, with her beautiful strange eyes, and her pretty features that he used to kiss his way over back… back when they still loved each other. 

“What’s the code to your door?” he asks, but Sara turns, hides her face in her jacket, refuses to look at him, and this is a strange reaction, when behind the door there’s a bed, and rest at last.

He repeats the question to SAM this time, and the long pause means he’s having a silent argument with Sara, if he should reveal the answer to Jaal. Then, as Sara pushes herself away from Jaal, SAM answers him.

“It is your birthday.”

The silence falls, heavy and tense.

Jaal opens his mouth, closes it. Tries again.

“What?”

“The code to Sara’s room is your birthday,” SAM repeats, and he allows the truth to settle between them.

How can Jaal stop himself from trying to read more into this revelation? That she’s clearly still thinking of him, caring about him enough to have him as a reminder every single time she enters her home? She doesn’t hate him - anymore, or she never did. Sara stands, slightly swaying on her feet, arms around her body as if she’s trying to protect herself from a blow, or hug and comfort herself, in the absence of someone else doing it.

Jaal steps close to the door, punches in the correct digits. The door hisses open. He turns towards her, overwhelmed and scared.

Sara’s nostrils flare and she looks like she is about to fight, or - Jaal realises, with a startle, cry. He’s not sure which is worse, but then she sniffles, eyes sparkling with yet unshed liquid, and he knows with a painful certainty that the crying is the worst of it.

If she was fighting him, then at least the cruel image he’s been trying to build  in his head and heart about his past lover would stand proud and true. He doesn’t know what to make of this woman, who is crying over his worst hurt. Unless, of course, it is also hers.

Jaal cannot comprehend why, if it hurts her so much, still, after so much time, she did it in the first place. 

“You are my first love, Jaal Ama Darav.”

She doesn’t say the rest: the last as well.

She won’t be able to love someone else, she won’t allow herself to. She knew it was a big ask, trying to love the best man in the universe, but it was hilarious she thought herself capable or worthy in the first place. She doesn’t want him to have to carry the burden of her misgivings. 

“You should change that,” he says, moving away so he can let her walk through.

He can’t control his bioelectricity at all, he’s spilling his emotions all over, and he can see the blue crackling from under his clothes, the frizz of her hair growing more intense. She must feel it as well, tickling against her skin, but Sara doesn’t move.

“Why?” she presses. “Does it make you uncomfortable?”

“No, Sara,” he says with a sigh. “But I shouldn’t know that.”

She shrugs. “I don’t mind.”

And with that, she finally takes mercy on him and moves. He waits in the hallway until he hears the sound of the lock falling into place.

***

Sara punishes herself by working. It’s what she used to do when she was Pathfinder as well, it’s just that now it doesn’t involve gunfire and blood, but rather old tech and loads of reports. She’s been putting off seeing Lexi, though SAM chides her she will need glasses soon. When did she get so old again?

It’s been hours since everyone left the office, and she is still cataloguing the pieces from their mission, a tedious kind of job but one which she enjoys doing in moments like these, when her soul is tender and confused and she needs time to think. She’s always complained, though half joking, that her desk is too tiny for a war hero. It’s mostly too tiny for the amount of coffee mugs she gathers throughout the day. When she pushes a relic with a bit too much force, one of her mugs goes slamming on the floor, and then rolling across it, blissfully not shattered.

The mug stops under Jaal’s chair, in the corner of the room. Sara walks close, gets on her fours, and grabs at her mug. When she lifts up, triumphant and somewhat smug about her coffee consumption, because at least it means it was empty and there’s no spill to clean, she freezes.

She’s never been on the other side of his desk. She suspects no one has. Because right next to his screen, there is a framed picture. Of the two of them, Jaal and Sara. They are young, so very young. She cannot even remember the exact moment, but they are sat at the Tempest’s kitchen table, and she is laughing, hand on his forearm, while he looks entirely too pleased with himself, probably the exact reason for her joy. She used to be this happy, she wonders, unable to equate this image of her younger self with the way she lives right now. 

But just like she couldn’t tame her heart before, make it beat for someone else, she fears she can’t control how much she still loves him now either. She just can’t say it. Jaal was the brave one in the past too.  

She’s startled out of her reverie by the door opening, Jaal’s figure in the doorframe. He notices her simply because of her surprised yelp, and he frowns.

“What are you doing?” 

She lifts the mug in the air, holding on to his chair to push herself to her feet.

“What are you doing here?” she counters back.

Jaal points to his desk, his travel pass on the surface. He steps closer and closer, heart beating in his chest, because he thinks he knows what she knows now. She’s turning redder and redder.

“I… I didn’t mean to see it,” she says, lamely, gesturing vaguely to the picture.

“I know,” he replies gracefully, grabbing his pass and trying to ignore how close they’re standing. “But it wasn’t supposed to be a secret.”

She moves her head to look up at him so fast that there’s even a slight cracking sound. She doesn’t even wince, continuing to search for an explanation in his expression. 

“Did you know the younger ones don’t even know? And most people don’t even care?” he asks.

The worst thing that happened to them, and forgotten by everyone but them. Sara didn’t know, she was too scared to ask just in case the answer was devastating. But it’s been years since anyone asked her how she is, how she feels.

“It wasn’t supposed to turn out like this,” she agrees, defeated at last.

She maps the way in which he is different, from the man in that picture. All the ways in which he is still alike, too. 

“I had such a lonely heart without you. But at least I got used to it. I refuse to let you in again, if you don’t mean it,” he says, and it is his turn to start retreating, putting some distance between them.

She uses the same perfume. Jaal is awash in memories. 

“I’ve always meant it.”

Jaal swallows, so hard to believe it.

“Then why?”

And so much can follow that question: why did she give it up, and so easily? Why did she just take his shocked acceptance, and not fight any further for him? Why did she allow so much time to pass to say something as simple as that? Why hasn’t she begged, on her knees, for forgiveness and happiness?

“I picked my family,” she says, and what is left unsaid is that they didn’t pick her back.

Jaal knows, because her mother doesn’t live on the Nexus. Because Scott got married and he became the Pathfinder. Because she didn’t answer a call from either of them, in all this time. Of course, everyone has their own life, but where is Sara’s life?

And he can’t help it. He can’t hold it in anymore.

“I could have been your family too,” he says, and the idea leaves Sara struck on the spot. She scrambles towards him, tripping over her boots in her haste.

“Jaal, wha-”

He doesn’t let her finish. He presses a velvet box to her hand, stabilising her fall in the meantime, and Sara feels like she is about to throw up. This is such a cliche, she’s seen tens of such scenes in her TV shows and the movies. Jaal storms off, not capable of hearing her reply, of seeing her expression. He’s been carrying the cursed thing with him everywhere, for the past five years, unable to let it go. Unable to let her go.

She can’t believe this is her real life.

She died once, twice, thrice. This is worse than all that combined. 

***

Sara doesn’t show up for work the following day. If it is because of him or because the Pathfinder is having an official visit, it is unclear. As the next senior member, it falls on Jaal to welcome Scott Ryder, even if it’s mostly the other way around, the angara summoned in the Pathfinder office on the Nexus. 

Scott has always liked Jaal. He likes to believe the feelings are mutual; after all, it was him that he first came to, asking for Sara’s hand in marriage in such a traditional, human way that the younger Ryder couldn’t help but imagine it’s from Jane Austen’s novels that he got the idea. They haven’t seen much of each other since, but they’ve always been polite, kind, even friendly - ignoring the Sara-shaped space in their conversations.

It was easy for Scott: between physio to get back on his feet, Ellen’s resurrection and his training as the next Pathfinder, he only had enough time to fall in love with Cora Harper. Parental leave followed, and then his actual new title, and he all but forgot about the man that once loved his sister. It is too sad of a thing to think about, how perfectly his life fell into place, and how quickly his sister’s fell apart.

With that thought, something flits into place in Scott’s thoughts. He stops talking mid-sentence, a pleasantry or another, his smile dying on his lips. Of course his sister wouldn’t do this, she is not that selfless…. is she? Scott thinks of all the places across this galaxy that he’s been welcomed into as if he was a hero, as if he was family, and how it’s all Sara’s doing, him just an extension of her, and beloved for that fact alone. He has known all his life how darling his twin is, but the world took a long time to catch up, but he was so happy about it, that he never wondered why the change. It has always been natural for him to be liked, so he never wondered why it’s all been so easy. 

Sara Ryder gave up something of hers, for it to become his. She’s his older sister, it came as easy as breathing for her, but Scott is suddenly sick to his stomach, the worry gnawing and growing.

“Jaal,” he says, extending an arm towards him, asking without words for help.

The angara is there in a blink of an eye, his hold strong around Scott’s elbow, his eyes filled with worry.

“Are you alright, my friend?” 

“Sara,” he says, and the worry on Jaal’s face deepens, the undercurrent on his emotions like a burn against where he’s touching Scott. “I think she did something horribly kind, and horribly stupid.”

The confusion doesn’t calm, even when the concern does. 

“What are you talking about?” Jaal asks, slowly letting go once Scott stops looking like he is ready to collapse.

“I think she bought peace and our lives with her own.”

Jaal scoffs, as if the idea is absolutely demented. But then he realises, slowly, as Scott waits, that exactly because it’s such an outlandish idea, it is exactly something that Sara Ryder would do. It is his turn to stiffen with the weight of this possibility, and the human merely waves him over, the two silent as they make their way through hallways, reaching the Pathfinder office.

Jaal has never been in here before, and no trace of its former inhabitant seems to remain beyond a coffee mug, set aside on the counter. He recognises it because it’s the same one Sara used to use on the Tempest, and something tugs uncomfortably inside his stomach. Scott notices him noticing it, but he doesn’t say anything. He’s about to fall into his sister’s steps, and break this great man’s heart. 

But at least he can do it here, privately and with no one else as a witness. He can afford it, this another kindness that his sister made possible. Andromeda itself made kinder, thanks to the brainy, ratty twin of his. Scott is torn, between the immense pride he feels, and the immense grief at all she lost and missed out on in the process. He doesn’t know his sister’s dreams anymore, not something she shares freely even with him, and he hurts again, for the time and all the life lived, or not, that separates them. 

“Has Sara ever wanted to be the Pathfinder?” Scott asks, deciding to ease Jaal into the truth of it. 

The other man is sure of his answer, unsure of what the point of this conversation is. 

“No, of course not.”

“Then why has she been one for so long?” Scott asks again, shaking his head as if he is a disappointed teacher. “Why has she become the poster child of the reconstruction effort, the voice for peace, the head of humanity’s research into the Jaardan?” 

There is no easy answer for these questions now, the ramifications of her actions so big that echo across the entire galaxy, affecting every single creature in this side of the world. So much responsibility coming with it as well, and that is truly something that the Sara Ryder they know would have never picked for herself. But she did, time and time again, for five long years - for longer than that, ever since stepping foot in Andromeda. 

“What are you trying to say, Scott?” Jaal says, patient as always, but the temperature in the room feels so much colder now, his bioelectricity field pushing against the walls of this space.

“I think she was led to believe she had no other choice. I think she did it for us.” 

Jaal’s face hardens, not believing.

“There is no us grouped together in Sara Ryder’s heart.”

“There is, and it’s not just the two of us. It’s my mother, and it’s the Tempest crew, and it is every single person who said the word Pathfinder to her face. I think we all thought she was calling the shots, and all this time she’s been just the gun.”

Because if she truly was the one in charge, would she live such a pitifully smaller life than everyone else? Would she be so sad? Would she have apologised to Jaal, would she look at every child she passes with so much yearning, would she cower before answering every phone call meant for her?

Sara Ryder is not living. She is hiding. 

“Scott,” Jaal says, softly, his shoulders slumping, his chest heaving with an oncoming panic attack.

The human’s posture mirrors him, and they are two men who care too much about a woman who cares about them so much more. 

“I know,” Scott says, swallowing hard. 

He thinks of his wife and their daughter, who looks so much like Sara did when she was a baby, and he feels his heart breaking all over again. He would do anything for his family, and he didn’t think until now that his sister would do the same, just because she had until now the title he always dreamt of, and he expected her to be happy for it, even when he subconsciously knew better.

“SAM?” he calls out, and Jaal has a fleeting smile on his face, the two of them friends in some sense as well.

“Yes, Pathfinder?” the AI asks, courtesy for the one present that is not always part of him.

“Are we correct?” Scott asks, even though he is certain of his assumptions now.

SAM chuckles.

“Wouldn’t it be a shame if I just told you?” he says, sounding sad and amused at the same time, and while the confirmation vibrates inside Scott’s skull, Jaal has no way of knowing. Their AI has always been meddling in the Ryder family’s affairs, but it must know so much more than they can guess. The only other person knowing the truth is Sara herself, and SAM merely wants them to talk to her instead.

There is no one else in the entire universe better at discussing emotions than an angara, but even Jaal Ama Darav hesitates for a moment, before thanking Scott, and leaving - calmly at first, and then in more and more hurried steps, until the Pathfinder can hear the running rhythm of his boots only.

***

He knocks at first. He tries to be patient, but when there is no answer, he does something very bad indeed. He tries the code, half hoping that she listened to him and changed it, and half hoping she didn’t because then… then it will prove his heart right. 

The door opens, and he sighs, relieved.

Sara’s inside, startled as she dries her hair with a towel. 

“Sorry,I… I thought you were Scott,” she says, finding herself too underdressed, showing too much skin in shorts and a shirt. 

Jaal stares, unashamed even as she catches him, and the more time passes, the straighter her spine goes, the prouder she grows at his attention. Like a wild pyjak indeed, or a forgotten plant. He wants to hug her close, though he’s afraid of startling her even more.

“I want the full truth,” he says, and here he is, braver than her, yet again, the best man in the galaxy. “Why did you break my heart, darling?”

She hangs the towel on the back of a chair, and turns to him. On her left hand, she wears a ring with a native Havarl rock, a jewelry Jaal picked himself six years ago. He stares, and he cannot stop the shivers racking down his body. 

“You gave it to me,” she says, defensive yet.

“And is that your answer?” he replies in kind, grown cocky by not finding himself on unsure ground anymore, by knowing his feelings are returned, even if not admitted.

Her shoulders sag, as if she’s been a puppet held by invisible strings all along, now snapped. She doesn’t look at him as she starts speaking, and he doesn’t move, fearful he’ll break the magic, stop the truth from coming to light.

“I didn’t have a choice. They threatened to kill mom, Scott,” her voice breaks. “I was still Pathfinder and they didn’t want me to take sides. And I kept thinking it’ll be just one more. One more request and one more mission, and eventually they will stop asking. Eventually I could go back and make it all right with you, enjoy everything with my family. And now I have some of it, and I am too scared to enjoy it, because it can all be taken from me, just as easily as it’s been given to me. But I don’t know what to do.”

This Sara is not someone Jaal can recognise. She has been ruthless as his Pathfinder, a gun always ready to go off, and he never realised how fragile that state has been. They’ve never truly spoken after that last battle, he has no idea how it has truly affected her to not only die all over again, but feel her brother do the same, their hearts and bodies held together by the will of an illegal AI alone. Once back, happy and relieved and sad and terrified to be alive, to have the first word you hear not Welcome back, not I love you - but Do this or, Jaal cannot imagine it. He’s been celebrated for months afterward, and she’s been blackmailed, had her mother and her brother and the entire angaran species held as a sword above her neck, while she’s been walking on a tightrope trying to balance the weight of a galaxy’s future. She’s done well, all things considered.

Well for others. But where is what their hero deserves? A poorly-lit office that she never leaves? A family home on Eos that she never gets to visit? A smile that never lasts more than a moment? Jaal feels so sorry for Sara Ryder that he cannot even look at her.

“You bite the hand that fed you,” he suggests, and finally allows himself to meet her eyes.

She looks shocked, like the thought never crossed her mind. His gaze lingers, as hers steadies - and there is a tiny flicker of the old Sara in there. Or the new one, the Sara that has yet to fully emerge, but one that he thinks he will be allowed to witness flourishing. 

“I am the second human Pathfinder after all,” she says, still so much wonder in her voice, as if she never realised the power behind those words, the influence in the title, the reach in the position. 

Jaal nods, his hand moving to his buckle, untying from there a knife he received a few years ago, from a krogan that both of them call family. He presents it to her, holding the edge, hilt forward, and her fingers grasp around it with practised ease, enthusiast determination. Jaal caresses his finger against the edge as he lets go, to stop himself from reaching for Sara instead.

He places his bleeding finger against his lips, and Sara’s eyes go to his mouth. Immediately, the air tightens, a shift as both of them remember how it felt to kiss the other. 

“Thank you,” she says, the words not enough. “I l-”

“Don’t,” Jaal says.

And Sara nods, as he turns to leave.

***

“Tann,” she says, her voice loud and clear in the middle of the night. The man startles awake in his bed, feeling the weight above him, Sara’s body pinning him in place. And what a pitiful easy thing it has been, guard taken down in one move, the code something as obvious as the date he’s been made director. She didn’t even need SAM for this bit of the work.

She’s suffered for such a long time for such a pathetic man. She hates herself more than she hates him. 

“What the fuck are you doing?” he shouts, trying to struggle and failing, eyes growing wide as she holds up the knife in her hand.

He eases back in the bed, restrained for now, biding his time, trying to think his way out of this situation.

“Taking back my power,” she explains. “I thought: who will stay behind a Pathfinder that’s been so easily manipulated? And you know what the answer is? Andromeda itself, apparently.” 

Tann’s screen keeps beeping, article after article popping up, and he glances towards it for a second, before turning back to Sara. But she’s moved in the meantime, and she’s so close, the glint of the knife the most obvious thing to him now, as the cold of it bites at his neck. Tann swallows, feels its sharpness cut. 

“What have you done!?” he says, and he has the audacity to still sound like he has the upper hand in this exchange, even with the threat of pain at his neck. 

Sara would feel disappointed in his self-awareness, if she still had it in her to give a shit about the Nexus director. 

“We have galactic laws now, Jarun. We didn’t have them five years ago, but good thing they apply retroactively, no? And you were smart, I’ll give you that,” she hums. “But you don’t have a superpowered AI as your brother, do you?” 

The amusement slips in her voice, as Tann’s eyes widen. He never left the Nexus, and neither did SAM. The place and the AI, one and the same - how easy it’s been, to ask for recordings of the director blackmailing her, the soldiers whose guns have been pointed at her limp body, as she woke up after saving Andromeda; the same number at Scott’s hospital door, or ready to unplug Ellen’s cryo support. All the handwritten notes, on self-destructing material, pictures of it all saved by someone who’s always been on her side. SAM has never told her these things, he merely kept them safe and waited for Sara to be brave. To bite back. But she’s a guard dog, and she only knows how to listen to orders - she’s just found the owner who’d also caress her, feed her. 

She’s doing this for Jaal Ama Darav. This time around, the reasoning sounds true and strong, and it’s not a reminder she’s telling to herself while crying herself to sleep, while stitching up her wounds on the bathroom floor alone, because no doctor is allowed to know about the secret missions from Tann, while meeting Evfra only when her intel tells her Jaal is on Veold. 

“I sent everything to the press. And Kandros. You probably have five minutes before the militia barges in. Though, I guess I have five minutes.”

Tann tries to move then, push her arm away, but she’s been anticipating it. And one of them is a trained soldier, while the other is an office worker. He has nothing on her, and how easy it is for her to incapacitate him, Jaal’s knife now gleaming green with his blood. 

She’s not stupid enough to kill him, there are laws against it unfortunately. She merely cuts deep enough in his eye to not do any long harm, dragging with all her force down his face. It’s a  butcher’s job, but the effect is the same: a deep gash that mirrors Jaal Ama Darav’s one. And just as she predicted, the door slams to the wall, her military colleagues surrounding them, guns still pointed, though the confusion is heavy in the air.

“Saeargent,” Kandros sighs, and she imagines she’ll lose this title as well now.

She is tired of the military life, of taking orders. She’ll take her punishment and her research, and retire somewhere far away from all of it. The knife goes limp in her hold, as the adrenaline leaves her body, and all she can feel is the extreme weariness. She is so tired. 

Kandros’ men must be going through all she sent - they will see Sara Ryder continuously fail to complete the missions she’s been given, smuggling goods or people under Tann’s nose, putting herself as a buffer between the directors and the world. The only thing ruined by this blackmailing is herself: her reputation, her body and five years of her life.

At least no more. 

She waves her empty hand in the air, and Kandros sighs again but steps forward to help her up, ignoring the stain on his uniform, as his men move at the same time to incapacitate the director. Sara looks at the mingled, sobbing figure of the man she feared for so long, and she merely pities herself.

“How much to let me go free?” she asks, pushing the hair away from her face, smearing Tann’s blood against her forehead in the process.

She frowns when it starts dribbling down her face, blood catching in her eyelashes. 

“Are you blackmailing me, Ryder?” Kandros asks, and Sara laughs and laughs, leisurely walking by his side as they make their way to the station.

***

“Sara Ryder!”

She sits up straight, suddenly fearful. It doesn’t matter how old you are, really - if you hear your mother shouting your full name, you know you’re in trouble, some type of primordial awareness. She doesn’t know what she wants to do, cower in the corner of her cell, or hold on to the bars in hope, so she ends up standing awkwardly, as Ellen comes into view.

She looks dishevelled and she is still wearing her pyjamas. Sara has never felt more loved in her life.

“Mama,” she says, trying to smile but starting crying instead. 

Ellen pinches the guard’s arm, apparently fully ignorant of the gun they are carrying - though she’s been Alec Ryder’s wife for half her life, so maybe nothing phases her anymore - and she is a mother first and foremost, so the guard listens and unlocks the cell. Scott is still in the process of paying her bail, a ridiculously low sum that Kandros has set symbolically, more to show he fully agrees with Sara’s actions. 

Sara crumples in her mother’s arms, while Ellen tries to make shushing sounds, her palm rubbing soothing circles on her back. She feels like such a baby, yet the crying doesn’t stop, can’t stop - until it’s all depleted, long after Scott joined them, his arms around both their backs.

 When the older Ryder sibling raises her head, she is smiling. Scott is struck stupid by the fact that this is how his sister is supposed to have looked all this time, this a true smile. It’s been so long that he stopped being able to tell the difference - but this one right here, it is what looks best on her. 

“Welcome back, bug.”

“Shut the fuck up,” she mumbles, but shifts, hugging him a bit tighter to her.

***

I always knew there’s something fishy about that fish-looking dude. Kick ass, Pathfinder!

-Anonymanus

And this is who we call humanity’s hero? Pathetic.

-Godzilla4563

The Pathfinder saved my life once. I don’t care about this.

-WingedKrogan

Makes you think if that title was deserved in the first place, hm…

-Odyssey

Well done, Sergeant Ryder.

-Jaal Ama Darav

***

Five years ago, Tann’s goons didn’t allow anyone to go and visit the convalescent Pathfinder. That included her beloved, Jaal Ama Darav. The first time they saw each other, she was using a cane, in a crisp uniform, in front of delegations from all across the galaxy. He tried to embrace her, overwhelmed with finally seeing her, finally getting to touch her, and understand that she is alive and well. She has pushed him away, pushed through his confusion, and broken his heart.

She wasn’t cruel. The brush with death simply put things into perspective, and her emotions were always nothing but trauma and survival and adrenaline. Not real. If he simply had gotten the chance to touch her, he would have felt how cold her hands were, how hard they held onto her cane. It was all filmed, the Pathfinder now the person everyone cared about.

SAM never allowed that video to be leaked to the press. Stripped of audio first, and then eventually fully corrupted. The angara would have never told, because they felt his heart, and knew his heart. Everyone else cared too much about Sara Ryder to comment on it, and the rest were just too much of a diplomat. It was public, but not nearly as bad as it could have, as they thought it was. Jaal did not beg, did not complain. Simply walked off, stiffly and Sara stood frozen in place, staring after him long after he left the room. No one bothered her, until eventually, of course, Tann did. To congratulate her, to scare her, to remind her of everything else she has to lose.

Not anymore.

She walks, but eventually it turns into a run, trying to catch up with his location. He is near the landing port, most likely waiting for Evfra’s arrival as they’ll be voting for a new director. When she is near enough, she shouts.

“Jaal!”

He turns, his heart beating hard and loud in his chest. She has braided the material of his rofjinn in her hair, and he steps towards her, his entire body buzzing. It’s public, quite a few handful of people now openly staring at them, but he cannot look away from her. She’s beautiful and, he suspects, finally his.

When they’re close enough, he finally allows himself something he wanted to do since their first reunion, and he takes the end of her braid in his hands, the passage of time written in its growth. 

“Tell me a truth,” he asks, a mere whisper.

“You’re the only thing I think I got right,” Sara says, glancing a brief look at the screen where the news keeps replaying her other mistakes. “You make me brave, Jaal Ama Darav. And I don’t want to ever live another day afraid. Will you be mine?”

“There was no doubt I’m already yours. Yes.”

And she leans up on her tiptoes, her palm caressing his scarred cheek, and kisses him.