Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Sometimes, Sara was sure that space was alive. Empty- a husk, even- but breathing nonetheless, in a sort of shallow way. It had a rhythm, though perhaps it was simply a single note, held down, measuring beats by the distant pulsing of stars she would never see; it was as much a comfort as it was a tragedy, she thought. Bittersweet. She tried to count the notes, finger tapping in time to a star that glowed a peculiar shade of blue- one, two, three, rest.

He’d almost been shot.

Sleep evaded her, as always. Lexi tried to help- insistent on administering melatonin supplements, magnesium pills, and even going so far as to demand Sara change her diet- but nothing ever seemed to work, and the Pathfinder would, most nights, remain awake for hours after the Tempest’s lights had been dimmed. To her knowledge, the only other person aboard who slept as little as she did was Kallo. She didn’t mind all that much, if she were to be honest. Sleep meant dreams, and dreams were rarely pleasant; all they accomplished nowadays was reminding her that the throne she sat upon was made of her own father’s bones, and that the title others worshipped didn’t belong to her, not truly. Sara was there for no other reason than to fill his shell. To be something at least reminiscent of Alec.

She took after him in more ways than she would’ve cared to admit.

God, she missed Scott; they were- and had always been- a single commodity, and separation rarely did either of them any good; there was a balance between them, a sort of scale that remained steady due solely to each other’s influence. Scott was a good, solid mix of soldier and diplomat, and acted as a balancing weight, so to speak, to her hot-blooded nature. She was logical, though, and creative- two things her brother had never been- and helped him consider situations in a different light to how he may have alone. In turn, he acted as 90% of her impulse control.

There were nights when she would write him, despite the knowledge he could neither read nor reply; it still felt as though she was keeping him updated, though, and the idea brought her some comfort. He’d want to know what was happening.

“Sara,” piped SAM, jolting her out of her reverie. “It is 4AM. Morning alarms are set for two hours.”

She sighed, and moved back from the window to take a heavy seat upon her bed, hands running through her hair- the colour was beginning to fade, and Sara wondered if Vetra would be able to dig up some dye. Needed a trim, too. “Thanks, bud,” she said, after a moment. SAM himself had become something of a brother to her, if an odd, clinical one. She already had one of those. “Think I’m gonna get some food. Anyone else awake?”

He was quiet for a moment, then replied, “No-one but Kallo Jath and Jaal Ama Darav, Sara.”

“Right. Tell me if anyone comes, please.”

With that, she made her silent way to the small kitchen just outside her personal quarters, doing her best to remain quiet. A few of her crew slept light, she knew, and Doctor T’Perro and Cora were the worst of them; both of whom would flip if they found her in the kitchen, two hours before wake-up. It was hard to pour cereal quietly, though, and each time one pinged against her bowl she nearly hemorrhaged.

It was a weird thought- the human Pathfinder, sneaking into the kitchen in the dead of night to steal Blast-Ohs. It succeeded, however, in reminding her that she was absolutely 100% not cut out for this. Her dad had to have known that, had to have recognised that no, his anxious mess of a daughter was not an ideal leader; hell, her brother wasn’t perfect, but at least he had some leadership experience. Sara was a recon specialist; she knew quiet, she could do quiet, but when it came to loud, apparent, purposeful, she was lost. Scott had always been the loud one, and she his logical voice of reason.

He should be here, damn it.

Sara’s back hit the wall and slid, until she was curled over herself, head buried in her hands. Scott should’ve been there. Her dad should’ve been alive; he should’ve kept his fucking helmet on and flown back up onto the Hyperion to lead them, like he was meant to. In losing him, the Initiative had lost a figurehead and icon, a dreamer who forged the very foundation of their journey. And she’d lost her other parent.

Sara felt like she’d never truly gotten to know her father. She just hoped she was making him proud.

“Sara,” said SAM, in their private channel. “Mr. Ama Darav is coming down the hall, towards your location. I have alerted him of your presence.”

Sara sighed. She and Jaal were close, but they hadn’t spoken at any great length since the incident with Akksul. It had shaken her terribly, to see yet another person she cared deeply about in danger- the bullet had been so close, and had Akksul not missed, Jaal would be dead. The thought hurt. It had been more harrowing for him, of that she was sure, and the only consolation she was familiar with was space, so that is what she gave him. A deeper part of her, however, knew that she had not been avoiding him for that reason alone- it frightened Sara, how scared she had been. She supposed she was trying to sort out what was going on in her head.

Their conversations since had been amiable, yet brief.

The metal against her back had begun to seep its chill through her clothes. Everything felt cold, these days; her hands, her bed, her quarters, her demeanor. Perhaps he rubbed off on you more than you thought, came a small yet decidedly spiteful voice. Plenty of those.

Her mom used to help, and for a long time they were dormant; Sara’s ‘little demons’, she had called them in that motherly tone of hers. They had come back when she died though, and despite her love for Scott, his consolations were never quite the same, and without even him, her mind had run rampant. SAM and Lexi tried their best, nevertheless, and she loved them for it; Lexi in particular, despite Sara’s complaints, had very much become a stabilising crutch. SAM too, though sometimes he reminded her a little too much of her brother, and that stung.      

Moments later, a familiar purple head poked its way into the kitchen, scrutinizing eyes running up and down her frame before he entered. Jaal was large, but from her vantage point on the floor, he loomed- all shoulders and arms and narrowed eyes, lips twisted into a frown that looked more concern than anger.

“You should be sleeping.”

“Yeah.”

“But you are not.”

Sara gathered her arms around herself a little tighter. “Yeah.”

At that, he surveyed her a little harder, mouth pressing into a line and head cocking to the side, eyes darting, likely trying to decipher her body language. He did that a lot, the surveying thing. Initially, it had made her uncomfortable, but she understood, now- he was just trying to figure her out, to decipher why the Pathfinder could possibly be curled up on the kitchen floor beside an abandoned bowl of cereal.

A moment passed in silence, and then another, and one more after that until Jaal- instead of leaving- sat down opposite her, mimicking her posture and never once breaking eye contact.

“Do all humans sleep as little as you, Ryder?”

Sara laughed; a small, bitten sound. “No, not generally. We’re supposed to get eight hours, I think? A night, that is. Some of us have more trouble sleeping. There’s these supplements you can take that help the process, though. Lexi’s got me on them at the moment.”

“They do not seem to be working,” he said, giving her a scrutinizing look. Sara reddened. “That was not intended as criticism; I cannot sleep, either.”

“I noticed,” replied Sara, giving him a smile. “So, what’s keepin’ you up?”

Jaal frowned, as if it were a dumb question. “Thoughts?”

The two exchanged a moment of eye contact. They were unsure of what to say- if there was, in fact, anything to be said to that, thought Sara, running a hand through her hair. “Thoughts, hey? Yeah, that’ll get you every time.”

At that, he smiled. She liked that smile, even if she didn’t see it all too often; it was gentle- friendly- and soft. Inviting. Sara had been intimidated by him beyond belief, upon meeting him; this towering, broad fellow with spooky eyes, regarding her with distrust, surrounded by others who likely fancied her alien head on a pike. It remained a disquieting thought. Jaal was sweet, though, and she had taken to him quickly. He felt familiar, though for what reason, she had no idea.

And when Akksul’s bullet had grazed his head, Sara had felt the devil tear at her stomach.

A companionable silence stretched. Both parties were deep in thought, and she noticed his hand twitching a little; it did that sometimes, when he was thinking. Distantly, Sara wondered when she’d picked that up. Her thoughts, however, were drowned out by others, more intrusive and immediate, most of which were of her brother and father. The hole the loss of her mother had left in her was slowly expanding, first with Alec’s untimely death, and then with Scott’s… condition. He wasn’t dead, but God knew sometimes it felt that way.

She promised herself she wouldn’t mourn him- he wasn’t dead. Yet sometimes she caught herself thinking of him in past tense.

“Do you have family, Jaal?”

The question seemed to take him off guard. His brow shot up, and he shifted; momentarily uncomfortable, it seemed, or perhaps just taken aback. “Family? It is part of our culture. We have large families, and we share parents with the community; we all have many mothers. I have a true mother, Sahuna, and many, many siblings. We are… close. We always have been.”

That stung a little, but Sara smiled, regardless. She was glad.

“And yourself?” asked Jaal, regarding her with curiosity. “I have not heard you talk of your family. Are you close?”

“Ah- yeah. We were.”

There was a moment- drawn by the peculiar silence that had fallen between them, as if a lack of speech could be a question- in which that was the only explanation she offered. It never got easier, talking about her mom; no amount of therapy or comfort could ward away the odd emptiness inside her the name ‘Ellen Ryder’ wrought, and once the death of her father had finally set in, the feeling had become a chasm. And the name ‘Alec’ was said a lot more.

“My mom died a while ago. She was- uh- sick,” began Sara, slowly- cautiously. Jaal was watching her with a tilted head. “And my dad, I… lost recently. My brother’s alive, but there was a technical difficulty when they were waking him up from cryo, so he- uh- only got half-revived. He’s in a coma, but they tell me he’ll be okay.”
 
Jaal frowned, but this time, his eyes were sad. “I’m sorry, Sara.”

She smiled at him, but remained silent. She didn’t know what to say.

“Tell me about him,” he said, watching her carefully, conscious of a line he did not wish to overstep. “Your brother, I mean. If you would like to.”

A small breath escaped her, followed by an utterance of ‘oh’, before she brought up her omni-tool to find a picture in her archives. It was old, but the most recent one she had; they hadn’t taken many pictures, after their mom had died- if felt as if the family was incomplete. It remained her favourite, though, because it was the last one that existed of all of them before her brother dyed his hair green. Sara had hated it, so he’d kept doing it.

“That one,” she said, pointing to her brother and shuffling closer to Jaal, so he could see, “is Scott. He’s a dumbass. I love him.”

He made a soft, interested noise, and grasped her forearm to gain a better look, sketching Scott’s face with his eyes like he did hers. It made her smile.

“He looks like you,” said Jaal, sparing her a smile before returning to look at the picture. His hand brushed the display, from her brother’s face to hers.

Sara laughed. “Yeah, he’s my twin.”

“And you are close?”

“Yeah. We always have been,” she said, fondly. “I miss him. He and I were- I mean, we’re a double package, y’know? A two for one deal, kinda. I think you’d like him; he’s big into guns. And talking.”

Jaal chuckled, leaning back to rest against the wall. His thigh brushed her hip; they were closer than she thought. “Is that so?”

“I mean, we’re similar in a lot of ways, too. But yeah, he’s a motor-mouth; God forbid he get started on weapon maintenance,” she trailed off with a sigh, smirking. “He used to do it to annoy me. Eventually, it just became habit- comforting for him, and white noise for me. I- uh- miss him. A lot.”

“I would like to meet him,” he said, after a small silence. “You speak of him fondly. And those are your parents?”

“Oh. Yeah.”

Her mom and dad hadn’t looked like that for a long time. In death, Ellen had been frail, drawn. Pallid. And her father hadn’t smiled like that in years, not for anyone. He was a good man, she knew, and a good father, in his own way; it was because of him and Scott and her actually had a chance out here. Well- that she did. Alec had taught her how to shoot, how to assemble a turret, how to hold a biotic barrier in place. Sara had never taken to tech quite like she had combat, though; she was too impatient, her father told her, and ‘thought too broadly’. Whatever the hell that meant.

“You and your brother- you look like your father. He… was the previous Pathfinder, was he not? I have heard Cora talk of him.”

Her finger brushed the display, over his face. A pit had formed in her stomach, as it always did at the mention of her dad. “He was. The title was meant to be handed down to Cora, in the event of his death. Don’t know why he gave it to me,” Sara paused, and smiled. It was bitter. “Guess I can’t ask him now, though. What’s done is done, though I don’t think I’ll ever really understand.”

Jaal cocked his head to the side, and twisted to face her. She felt small under his gaze. “You give yourself too little credit, Sara. I have never thought you out of place; you fit the position as if it were your own skin.”     

“That’s- kind of you.”

He smiled. “You are kind to me.”

Sara bumped his shoulder with her own, unsure of how to respond. She could feel a flush coming to her cheeks, though. “You’re my friend. I feel like that’s reason enough not to airlock you, no?”

“One would hope, Pathfinder.”

“Man, it never gets any less weird, hearing that,” she muttered, leaning back beside him. The clock on her omnitool read 4:40AM. “I feel like it’s still my dad’s title, y’know? Kind of like I’m borrowing it, or something. Everything’s yet to sink in, I guess. Big storm comin’.”

Jaal made a noise that sounded somewhat like agreement deep in his chest, and Sara leaned her head into his shoulder absentmindedly; she felt terrible for avoiding him, and even worse for failing to check in- he was her squadmate, and her friend. Sara had to know he was okay. To her knowledge, there remained a rift between himself and her milky way crew, though it was smaller than before. Liam had done his best to make the angaran feel at home, she knew, and he and Cora seemed to be amiable, if not friends.

“You really scared me, you know.”

He shifted a little at that, twisting in order to look down at her, brow furrowing. Jaal said nothing, though, and instead waited for Sara to elaborate- he looked confused.

“The whole thing with Akksul. I- you could’ve died, Jaal. If his aim had been better, if-”

The angara heaved out a sigh, which turned into a breathy chuckle as he wrapped an arm around her in an almost-hug. Sara trailed off, instead pressing a palm to her forehead and leaning against him, taking a breath that nearly shuddered, but not quite. The warmth emanating from Jaal’s skin was almost enough to counteract the aching chill had had managed to seep into her bones. She wondered, distantly, if he could feel it.

“You worry too much. It’s just a scar; scars heal.”

Her lips thinned. “You don’t worry enough. Scars heal, but bullets to the face don’t.”   

Sara’s voice wavered at that, a dangerous tell-tale sign of things she didn’t want to think about. Jaal seemed to notice, though, and cocked his head to the side, regarding her in that way he liked to. She’d felt so numb, upon seeing that bullet whiz past; her rifle had been in her hands, loaded, and ready to fire, but she’d frozen in place. That all-too familiar fear had gripped her, and rooted her in place. She couldn’t lose a friend, she had told herself; as if that is what she considered him, a friend.

“I,” she began, stammering, trying her hardest to keep her voice steady- in vain. “I care about you. You- I can’t lose anyone else.”

A large hand settled on her cheek, brushing aside the hair that had fallen into her face- the static on his skin made it stick up in a way that would’ve been comical, if not for the atmosphere. Sara shut her eyes and leaned her head against it- managing a stuttering inhale- and counted the beats of her own heart, which was hammering against her ribs, in her head.

“I’m sorry, Sara,” he said, after a moment. His own voice was thick with emotion, and Sara noticed, distantly, that it was now gone 5AM. “You have suffered. I would never wish to cause you additional pain.”     

She didn’t know when they’d gotten so close, but now their faces were just inches apart, and she could see every fleck of colour in his eyes. He traced the freckles dusting her nose with the back of his hand, running it down the curve of her cheek to her lips; Jaal took a breath, and she felt it stir the hair tucked behind her ear. Sara leaned forwards until their foreheads rested against one another, and pressed a hand atop his, where it lay on her cheek.

“You could never.”

He seemed to take that as his cue, surging forwards to capture her lips in a very human kiss that expelled any cold that remained settled in her bones. Sara’s arms snaked up and around his neck, fingers running down the peculiar folds of his head before laying flat, trying to press the two closer together, despite the fact that any space between them had been occupied.

“Detecting a spike in your vitals,” said SAM, through their private channels. No fuckin’ kidding.    

Jaal’s lips twisted into a smile against hers, and he pulled back to look at her, a different expression in his eyes than before. Something toeing adoration. It made her squirm and flush, averting her gaze with a muffled laugh.

“Why’re you lookin’ at me like that, big guy?” said Sara, turning a deeper shade of red when Jaal leaned closer once again, smiling at her.

“Because you are lovely.”  

It was an hour later when Liam, on a mission for some coffee, stumbled into the kitchen, to the sight of the Pathfinder and Jaal curled up together on the ground, both asleep and nestled against one another.

Peebee owed him 20 credits.  

Chapter Text

Sara wondered if Vetra could find some watercolours. Sure, she could do without, but there was only so much she could draw with stolen Nexus pens- most everything was done on datapads, so it was a real struggle to find stationery of any kind, particularly the old-fashioned graphite pencils Sara liked to sketch with. She’d managed to find some , but they were becoming progressively shorter as she used up all the lead; even her mechanical pencils, which were more readily found themselves than the graphite inside them, were beginning to run out.

Art was something that carried from species to species, not confined to a single planet or galaxy; it was universal. But her particular brand of sketching was fairly particular to humans, if Sara wasn’t mistaken- the study of faces and features. She hated saying it; sounded pretentious.

It had always helped her wind down. Sure, sometimes the pencils snapped, but she’d just sharpen the jagged end and create a second. Her mom had tried to incorporate art into her and Scott’s lives early, it being a healthy coping mechanism of her own; Scott hadn’t taken to it, instead leaving the studio to join their father, dissembling and reassembling his guns. Sara had loved it, though, and despite the immense frustration anatomy had caused her for years, it remained her favourite pastime. She found she was always a little better at drawing aliens than she was people.

Sometimes it made her sad, considering her style mimicked her mother's. They had a similar way of sketching out lines, and whenever a face turned out too reminiscent of something Ellen had drawn, years ago, Sara would erase it and start anew.

She didn’t think about how as her end had drawn near, her mom’s hands had been thin and frail, and had shaken too hard to hold a pen properly.

Sara stared hard into the mirror, trying to map out her own features, to no avail. She could never get her face quite right, and she wasn’t sure why- her nose was always too wide, and her lips too round. She always turned out looking more like her brother, but with her eyes, which could be terribly unnerving to see after little sleep, or when drunk.

Once, she’d apparently burst into his room in the dark hours of the morning, holding her sketchbook and muttering something along the lines of, “ Dude, holy fuck .”

She didn’t remember that, of course. But Scott insisted.    

“Are you hoping to find something?”

Sara started, letting out a small yelp and stuffing her book underneath her desk. She hadn’t even heard Jaal enter; who knew how long he had been standing there, witnessing her intentful mirror-staring. That wasn’t to mention the muttering; there was probably muttering .

“Made me break my pencil,” she said, looking down at the snapped graphite in dismay. “Ass. I don’t know how you’re so quiet; you’re big .”

Jaal chuckled, and took a few more steps into the room, gazing at the utensil she held with curiosity. “I am used to being big.”

Sara’s mouth pursed, and she rolled her chair back, swivelling to set the book down on her pile of others. “Yeah? So’s Drack.”

“Yes, but Drack is not used to being quiet . Vetra would have been a better example.”

A smile tugged at her lips, and she allowed herself a laugh- he had a point. But Vetra was long, and narrow, where Jaal was broad and towering, and got his shoulders stuck in doorways; they were hardly comparable. Nevertheless, he managed to be very proficient at sneaking up on people. Namely, her .   

“What were you doing?”

“Oh, I was- uh,” Sara began, casting her gaze between the pencil she held and the book she’d discarded. Were the angara artists? “Drawing, y’know? Like, sketching.”

Jaal’s brow knitted, and he cocked his head at her. “Sketching?”

She sighed, and beckoned him over. Some things didn’t translate well, and it was always clear when they did not; Milky Way ( or ‘meelkee wey’ ) for example. Showing others her art wasn’t something Sara made a habit of, but… it was Jaal, and they had a comfortable thing between them, whatever that thing was . They weren’t just friends- hadn’t been since their moment in the kitchen- but they weren’t involved, either, just hanging in the stasis of in-between. It was nice, though, and it made Sara feel safe.

She didn’t know what that meant.

“Look,” she said, gesturing for him to sit on her bed while she stood, gathering a few of her art books before joining him. She flipped the first one- one of her more recent ones- open, and on the first page was a picture of the Citadel, drawn the day she’d gone into cryo. It was sketchy and rushed, but the view was recognisable; her window of their apartment, looking out across the Presidium fountains. It had been wonderful, and expensive .  

“This was the view from where Scott and I lived,” said Sara, brushing her hand lightly over the paper, careful not to smudge the pencil lines. “The Citadel, back in the Milky Way. It- it was a beautiful place; the fountains were my favourite, especially the little fish. I loved the marketplace, too.”

“The Citadel,” he said, testing the name out on his tongue. He pronounced it kind of funny, like ‘seet-idel’. “Do you miss it?”

“Every day.”

Jaal frowned. “Do you… regret coming here?”

Sara chuckled breathily, flipping to the next page, which was another, sketchier picture, this time of the Tempest from the Nexus port, before she’d boarded that first time. “Never. This is home, now, and I wouldn’t give it for anything.”

Her voice hitched a little on the word ‘home’, so she continued to flip through the booklet, through pictures of her crew, of the planets. There was one of Prodromos, very early in its construction, and another of a kett; a study, of sorts. She’d taken stills from some of her and Lexi’s scans and translated them to paper, trying to make sense of their physiology the way she knew best.

There was one that made Jaal laugh, which was a picture she had sketched up of Vetra and Drack asleep in the back seat of the Nomad.

“So,” began Jaal, looking down at a drawing she had done of Cora, that one day she’d not moved from her post in the bio lab, “this sketching , it is when you translate what you see to ‘ paper ’?”

Another new word, she assumed. “Yeah, kind of. Sometimes it’s things you see with your eyes, in the moment, but sometimes it can be mental images, too. Or memories. We used to use paper and pens to write, too, but when technological advancement gave us the means, we turned to datapads. We can use those for art, too, but… I find that it’s different. Like, I feel like the digital art I’ve tried in the past didn’t have any personality.”

His brow knitted again, and he looked down at the paper with renewed chagrin. “How… can a picture have a personality ?”

Sara smiled. “Personification. They don’t really, it’s just something we take from them, y’know? Like an aura, or a tone.”

He made a noise of consideration, at that, but she suspected it was mostly for her benefit- she understood how the concept could seem ridiculous. Shit, sometimes it seemed ridiculous to her .

They’d reached the end of the top book, so she put it aside and opened the second, which was her most recent. It wasn’t quite full, and most of its drawings were of people, doing things. The first was of Peebee and Cora training, with a peculiar attention to detail regarding Cora’s abs- Sara could appreciate them. The next was of Lexi, working, and after that, Suvi, upon realising that she had magnetised her full coffee cup to the hull once again.   

And after that was Jaal, as he had appeared to her on Aya; looming, with a dangerous expression. The angara in question brushed his finger over the drawing, tracing it with his eyes before turning to her with a curious expression.

“Me?”

Sara nodded. “You, the day we met on Aya. You were one of the first angara I ever spoke to.”

He smiled, and cast his gaze back to the sketch. “I did look at you like that, didn’t I?”

She flushed, and continued to flip through. Sara hadn’t noticed how many of the drawings were of, or featured, Jaal, and felt herself growing redder after each picture. Then, there was a page of black; just, the whole surface, shaded as dark as it would go, with no parts left blank. All the pictures of him after that featured his new scar.

Sara remembered that night; the one after they had returned from Havarl, after Jaal’s narrow avoidance of death. She didn’t want to- she’d been a mess, and the only thing her mind had been able to conjure up was black, so that was what she drew.

They reached the latest image, which was one of her, in the mirror. The one she’d been slaving over when he had come to check in. Jaal frowned at it, and traced the sketched out curve of her cheek with a finger.

“This is you, no?”

Sara nodded, and Jaal continued, with scrutinizing eyes, yet a fond smile. “You have a softer mouth, and a straighter nose. And the corners of your lips tilt upwards. May I?”

She handed him a pencil, and flipped the book to the next page. He held it wrong, with his hand in a fist, balled around it so hard she heard the wood creak. Quickly, Sara showed him how to hold it, and rearranged his fingers to grip it properly- it worked with his unique hands, to her surprise. She had tried to teach an old friend of hers, a turian, and she had snapped every pencil she was given.

Jaal put the pencil to paper, and began mapping out wobbly lines, sketching her face intently with his eyes as he did so. The strokes were continuous and harsh, and he seemed stumped, especially when it came to her hair; he settled for strong, opaque lines, going directly down. For her freckles, he drew oddly geometric little circles, neat amongst the shakiness of his lineart.

The result made her smile, and him flush. It was a caricature not dissimilar to that of a human child, all wobbly, unpracticed lines, and a poor grasp of human anatomy. His cheeks flamed blue, and he covered the picture with a large palm.

“That- that is not what you look like. I am so sorry,” he said, voice quickening with each word. Sara just chuckled, and that seemed to embarrass him further. “You are beautiful! I promise, truly, you are. I just-”

She placed a hand on his own and, giving him a reassuring smile, pried it off the paper. It was lovely, in it’s own way- she loved it, nevertheless.  

“Jaal, settle down. I love it,” she said, taking the pencil and dating it, with the caption ‘ by Jaal ’. “Art’s a thing that takes practice, y’know? Like shooting, or tech; all of those things are art forms. And this? Wonderful, for a first try. Look, I’ll show you one of my old ones, yeah? From when I was a kid.”

She stood, and withdrew a plastic pouch from the bottom of the pile, pasted with a sticker that read, ‘ Sara.R, age 7 ’. The picture she procured was crinkled and torn at the edges, and a thing of nightmares, to be frank. She put it in his lap and he stared down at it with something like uneasiness, narrowing his eyes and picking it up with gentle fingers.

“What is that?”  

Sara laughed. “A dog, according to me twenty years ago. They’re Earth animals, cute things, similar size to an adhi. Humans keep them as pets. They- uh- don’t actually have seven legs. And they have eyes.”

“I would hope, or else it would not be a very good animal.”

“No, no, I suppose not,” said Sara, with a flash of a grin. She sat back beside him and slung an arm around his shoulders, nodding down to the worn paper in his hands. “See, though? It takes practice, and familiarity. I’ve been dicking around with art for more than two decades, and this was the first time you’ve ever held a pencil; gotta give it time, yeah?”

Jaal nodded, and smiled at her, his own arm snaking around her waist. He relocated the ugly picture to her nightstand, and leaned his head against hers, taking a deep breath. They sat for a moment, silently, listening to the hum of the Tempest’s engines below, the squeak of ‘ Mr Fuzz ’, as Sara had taken to calling the… hamster-thing, the whirring of the ventilation systems. It was peaceful, and it was theirs.

Were they just friends? Sara found herself wondering; she knew the angara were free with their emotions- and, by extension, their affections- but whatever existed between she and Jaal felt palpably not platonic . Though she supposed she could’ve just been misinterpreting signals, could’ve been mistaking his friendship for something else, or letting her own dumb feelings get in the way of clear judgement. Or maybe-

“Sara?”

She blinked, unaware that he’d said anything prior. “Oh, sorry. I didn’t catch that; come again?”

“I… said that there was something I came to discuss with you,” said Jaal, averting his gaze to the floor. “Before we were sidetracked. Is that- may I?”

He sounded nervous, which made her nervous.   

“Of course, Jaal. Anything,” she replied, a little too quickly. “I mean- you can ask me anything. Anytime. What’s- uh - what’s on your mind?”          

Smooth as ever, Sara . She could almost hear Scott’s jabbing tone, the cheeky grin that would no doubt accompany it. Even in her brain , he was an ass.  

“I enjoy your company. And…”

He trailed off, but there was only a moment’s pause in which they looked at one another, flushing, before Jaal moved slowly- carefully- to press his lips against hers once again, hand trailing up her neck to cup her cheek. It was soft and sweet, like last time, but slower and somehow, more lucid . This time, it wasn’t 5AM in the kitchen; no, it was thoughtful. They both knew what they were doing, and the implications behind it. Sara didn’t know what that meant.

Wasn’t sure she wanted to. She had enough knots in her stomach, without having to worry about butterflies each time she saw him.

A gentle yet firm hand to the chest pushed them both down and onto her bed, and her arms snaked up around his neck to pull him closer. When Sara opened her mouth to him, Jaal dragged his tongue across her teeth, drawing a small, shuddering breath. His hands ventured from her waist down to her hips, fingers digging lightly into the pliable flesh there, before running up the length of her torso underneath her shirt, to her ribs.

A soft moan left her, and she tilted his head to the side so she could nip lightly at his jaw, hands running down his clothed back and doing their best to explore the divots in his skin, carding along jutting bones and hard muscle. Jaal sighed, and the action stirred her hair where it fanned out below her head.

Their lips met again, and he withdrew his hands from beneath her shirt to rest at her chin, drawing her mouth to his. This kiss was heavier, and more passionate- lips and tongue and teeth, gentle and firm at the same time. They were building a rhythm, like music. Like art .

“Jaal, I-”

Sara was cut off by SAM, who narrowly avoided the poorly aimed closest object. Jaal laughed against her lips, and the sound made something settle deep in her stomach- something that wasn’t arousal.

“Sara, Lieutenant Cora Harper is looking for you. I predict that she would exhibit distress at your immediate position.”

The Pathfinder sighed. “Yep, me too.”

She captured Jaal’s lips with her own once more, and- with an apologetic smile- rolled out from under him and smoothed down her hair, schooling her appearance into something nonconspicuous and presentable. Jaal did the same, straightening his rofjiin and standing up, creating a respectable and non suspect distance between them.

When Cora entered, Jaal excused himself with a smile and dip of the head, turning to give Sara a wide grin just as he was about to pass through the door.

“That’ll be all, Sara,” said Cora, standing from the seat she had taken in the Pathfinder’s wheelie chair. “Thank you, I really appreciate it.”

Sara smiled. “No problems, Cora. It’s what friends are for.”

“Well,” began the other woman, giving her a peculiar look, “in that case… As a friend, I’d advise you to ask him not to bite you, next time.”

She reddened immediately, a hand darting up to her neck. Sara stuttered a rushed thank-you and ushered Cora out of her room, to her apparent amusement, and bee-lined for the mirror set up at the other side. Sure enough, there it was- a purple mark, right at the base of her throat.

“That little shit .”  

She was going to airlock Jaal into the Scourge.

Chapter Text

Something was wrong.

Something was terribly, terribly wrong; why wasn’t she moving? Sara always moved, always fidgeted and twitched- to see her still was bad, bad, wrong. And Jaal- despite not knowing too much about human anatomy- knew that arms weren’t supposed to bend like that, knew that chests were supposed to rise and fall. Knew that blood wasn’t supposed to run from noses.    

She bled red. The colour didn’t suit her.

“SAM,” said Cora, kneeling down beside Sara’s prone body. “SAM, do you read?”

The lieutenant was calm- too calm. Her hand shook as she raised it to her omni-tool, though, and Jaal was sure her mouth didn’t usually move like that, quivering at the corners. There was a second of deafening silence in which they dare not take a breath, and then another afterwards- when the AI responded, it was as if a glass had shattered; a relief from the tense quiet, but jarring and sharp.

“Lieutenant Harper, the Pathfinder’s vitals have dropped. I cannot access her- I am attempting a reconnection.”

Cora sank to her knees, unspeaking, and Jaal felt a rift tear in his chest. Her vitals had dropped- what did that mean? Was she dead? No, she couldn’t be- Sara couldn’t die, she was the Pathfinder. There were no signs of outward trauma; no bullets, no gashes, no shattered armor, no blood aside from what trickled down from her nose.

“Is-” began Jaal, pausing when his voice broke to clear his throat, as if something had lodged itself there. Something that tore. “Is she okay?”

Another short silence, before SAM replied. “Sara is not responding. I am making a second attempt at reestablishing a connection.”

He still didn’t understand. Jaal dropped next to Cora and leant over Sara’s body, summoning his own omni-tool to scan her- the AI was right; she had no vitals, nor was she expelling any body heat. She wasn’t dead. She wasn’t. Not possible, not conceivable.  

“Jaal, stay with her. I need to call an emergency extraction,” said Cora, standing abruptly and stumbling away, so unsteady compared to her usually composed demeanor. The lieutenant was pale, and bodily shaking, as if terribly cold- a possibility, considering Voeld’s environment, but she had never before exhibited any large aversion to the climate. He could faintly hear her exchange with the Tempest, requesting immediate extraction and Doctor T’Perro on site; her voice quivered, even as she fought to remain calm.

Jaal had no idea what emotion he was feeling. It was… a lack thereof, almost; an odd numbness that was foreign to him, but that had seemed to seep into his very bones. Sara didn’t look hurt. She was fine, surely, so why had her vitals failed?

No, she didn’t look fine.

She looked wrong. He didn’t like it, didn’t like seeing her like this. Sara was small, but she was not frail- not some fragile thing to lay broken in the snow and die. There were icicles forming on her eyelashes, and her lips had turned purple; Jaal didn’t know they did that. It was a discovery he wished he had not needed to make.

The blood on her face had frozen.

“I am connected,” piped SAM. Jaal wondered if he had emotions- if he could feel panic. Or numb. “The Pathfinder’s heart is unresponsive. I will initiate a manual restart.”

Restart her heart; it had stopped. Why? They didn’t just… do that, did they? Surely not.

He wondered if his had, too. Or perhaps it was beating too fast for him to feel.

“Is Sara stable?”

Another pause. “No.”

That wasn’t good; not good at all. The Tempest needed to move, or else they could lose their Pathfinder entirely; no, that couldn’t happen. She’d be fine. Jaal didn’t know if that was wishful thinking, or a denial of the inevitable; survival chances of her mission were narrow, he knew, but if she was going to die, it would not be spontaneously, in the cold.

Die. The word sent a stab straight to his chest, something as cold as Sara’s fingers- even through her gloves- as he gripped her hand. No, she couldn’t die, she wouldn’t die. She’d be fine.

The lie was blatant, but Jaal made himself believe it.

Cora returned to his side and lifted Sara’s head into her lap. The sound of the Tempest’s engine whirred distantly; close, yet too far. The human looked shaken, and her hands hovered around the Pathfinder’s head, as if unsure how to handle her- Jaal did not blame her. She looked as if she would break- looked as if she were already broken.

Had she broken?         

“I don’t know what happened,” said Cora, after a moment. She regarded Jaal with solemn eyes, and finally, rested her hand against Sara’s ashen cheek, mouthing to herself the word ‘cold’. “I don’t- she just fell. No warning. No shot, nothing, just… down.”

He nodded, but did not reply. She was right; there had been no apparent reason- it was like it had been completely spontaneous. She’d just switched off like a light. Dark.

Not a good thought. Not a good thought.              

“The Pathfinder is responding,” said SAM, with no forewarning; Cora’s head snapped towards the prone woman, eyes scouring her for a change in condition- none appeared. “I am supporting her system manually. However, she requires immediate medical attention; a technical overload seems a probable cause.”

The lieutenant’s brow furrowed. “Her implant?”

“Most likely.”

Jaal wasn’t sure what kind of implant they were referring to, and franky, he didn’t care enough to ask. A technical malfunction- why was that possible? He vowed to research it, when his mind was not full of her; specifically, her limp, freezing body.

His mind was always full of her.

That thought brought a horrible, cold feeling to his stomach. Don’t let it dawn on you. Not here.     

Sara would be fine.

Sara, with the warm eyes and cold hands. Sara, with the hesitant smile and the soft skin, soft voice, soft demeanor, soft lips.

He couldn’t lose her.  

Behind them, the Tempest’s engines whirred, and the ramp deployed. Lexi stood inside, beckoning them with frantic movements and loud, indiscernible words; Jaal didn’t know if she was speaking too quickly to be understood, or too quickly for the translators to pick up- either way, he and Cora leapt into action like fire, the lieutenant gathering up Sara’s dropped gear, leaving Jaal to heft her into his arms as they ran.

Stars, she was so cold.

Lexi was shouting orders, but Jaal couldn’t understand them. The words, they were there; they translated. But he couldn’t tie them together, couldn’t tie his own thoughts into a comprehensible string. Only one sentence worked.

He couldn’t lose her.

Sara was taken from his arms by Drack, rushed to the medbay with Lexi, who was demanding she be ‘hooked up’. Another machine; the life support. She’d be safe, she’d be okay. T’Perro would help, and so would SAM, and she would be okay- or, well, alive. ‘Okay’ came into the equation later.

A crushing, heavy feeling had weighed down his chest without his notice, forcing the air from his lungs and the function from his legs. Jaal slumped, first to his knees, and then to the floor; she had felt so small- so fragile- in his arms. It was easy to forget, easy to think of her as immovable and immortal, this figurehead upon her pedestal; untouchable. That was not the case, he knew, but there was a difference between pondering her mortality and witnessing it.       

Sara was a person, made of flesh and blood just like him, and anyone else on the ship. She was alive, and like all things living, she could die. She would die. And yet, for some reason, a fact so natural instilled in Jaal a terrible kind of looming fear; she couldn’t die. She was too alive, too free and present, too much like everything he had grown to know and adore. They needed- at the minimum- one Ryder in the galaxy, and the second was indisposed; without her, they had nothing. He had nothing.   

She had been so cold.

He decided he hated Voeld. It could burn.  

Jaal buried his head in his hands and wept.

It could burn.

Beep, beep, beep, beep.  

A rhythm. Something to cling to, something to count; she could do that.

Everything hurt . Sara felt a sharp, stabbing pain behind her eyes, and another- more muted, but aching - deep in her bones. She felt muffled, somehow- as if everything she was experiencing was from behind glass, like she was watching from afar. It felt wrong, and disjointed, and there was something she couldn’t see tugging sharply at her arm; an unpleasant yet grounding sensation.

She couldn’t remember what had happened. All she could recall was panic, falling, her name, shouted, and then… cold. And arms, secure and familiar, but as if she had experienced them distantly.

What a trip .

Sara tried to raise her arm, but the pain of movement gave her pause- why did everything hurt ? A machine beeped- not the one measuring her heartrate, but one that sounded alarming - to her left, and suddenly, all she could see was Lexi T’Perro, looming and pressing a cool hand to her forehead, tapping at the datapad balanced precariously on her desk while she did so.

The doctor looked concerned, and when she spoke, it was a far softer tone than Sara was accustomed to.

“How are you feeling? That was quite the stunt.”

Sara frowned, and allowed her head to tip back onto the medbay pillow. How was she feeling? Disjointed? Somehow separate from her body, from this searing, all-encompassing pain ?

“Pretty shitty,” she replied, voice haggard from disuse. God, she sounded awful. “What happened ?”    

Lexi’s eyes drifted to her vitals machine, then back to her. Her heart rate was slow, but steady.

“Your L5 implant malfunctioned. You were... clinically dead for thirty two seconds before SAM manually restarted your system.”

Dead. Again . A whole ten seconds longer than last time. Sara truly wondered if the universe was trying to tell her something, sometimes.

“Oh.”

What other answer could she give? ‘Sorry about that, Lexi; next time I’ll try my hardest to make it thirty-one seconds’. Or, perhaps, ‘there is a deep and gaping hole inside of me that grows with each fatalistic thought’. Neither were ideal. Nor was the deep and gaping hole inside her, that grew with each fatalistic thought.

How often did an implant malfunction? How did that even happen ? On prototypes, sure, that was to be expected, but on a fully developed model deployed to the Andromeda system, one would think they’d have been a tad more careful.      

Cora and Jaal had been with her, that much she remembere-

With that thought, the pit in her stomach hollowed and dropped; Jaal . She remembered his arms; his face, sketching her own, seen with foggy eyes on the brink of death. She needed to see him, needed to let him know she was okay, needed-

Her heart rate monitor beeped faster, and Lexi placed a gentle hand on her own. Sara was cold. Sara was always cold.

She didn’t want to be. Not after feeling the snow against her own corpse.

Ah, a fatalistic thought. And so grew the void.

Sara was sure that peculiar, empty feeling hadn’t been there before. Maybe SAM had forgotten to restart something. Or perhaps it was the knowledge that, for the second time since coming to Andromeda, her heart had stopped. Or the third, if one counted the first time Jaal had kissed her.

That’s it, darling. Happy thoughts.

Her mother’s was not a voice she needed to hear, she knew, but the words came unbidden. She had been twelve years old, with a broken arm, and it was as if the world had ended. Oh, how Sara had cried . It was almost funny, in retrospect; twice dead, and doing fine; broken humerus, and the waterworks ran rampant.

Granted, this was ( roughly six hundred and ) fifteen years and two dead parents later; wasn’t much room for tears, anymore.

“Jaal,” she managed, squeezing Lexi’s hand. “Can you- I need to talk to him.”

Sara’s words slurred a bit, but she seemed to understand. It felt bad when she left, though, because it left her alone with her thoughts. With the crushing knowledge, and the slow, dawning realisation.

No room for tears.

It had been so cold. Like the ice had reached up and taken her in its grasp, lacing it’s fingers deep into her bones and weaving it wicked tendrils up her spine. It was still cold.

She wondered if she’d ever be warm again.

Implant malfunction. How in the hell-

“Sara,” said SAM, over their private channel. She jolted, and the movement stung . “My sensors read it as an overload, not a malfunction. You must be more careful.”

She remembered . She’d tried too damn hard with those barriers, but she had to protect them; protect him . Sara had been exhausted- spent, and weary from their previous fight. Cora had warned her to be careful with the biotics, to make sure she used them safely; she was proud, though, so of course, she paid her words no heed. Idiot .

God-damned idiot . It was her fault.    

Guns had been blazing- an ambush- and Jaal had been trapped centre-field. It had been instinctual, the barrier she tore from the exhausted reserves of her biotics; what kept it there, though, had been fear. In fearing for his life, she’d momentarily lost her own.

And, like the dumbass she was, she’d do it again in a heartbeat.

Scott once (note; frequently) told her that she never learned. Why was he always right .

“Thanks for bringing me back,” she said, after the long pause in which she thought. “I owe you one. Well- two .”

“I am detecting a high amount of the cortisol hormone in your system, Sara. It is my recommendation that you are administered fluoxetine.”

Cortisol; the stress hormone. Fluoxetine; an antidepressant. Both of which were familiar to her.  

God, she hoped Jaal was okay. She had been so upset after his run in with Akksul, and he’d only been grazed- he had seen her die, seen her dead , and held her cold, limp body.

The fatalistic thought tally was really racking up those numbers.

“Sara.”

Ah. Speak of the devil, and he shall appear.

She went to lift her head off the pillow, but a large, strong hand stopped her. Instead, he knelt beside the bed and weaved his fingers into hers- conveniently, he had chosen the arm devoid of a cannula.

“You really scared me, you know.”

Her own words; the ones she had said to him that night in the kitchen.

No room for tears.  

Sara took a deep breath, and tilted her head a little towards him. “I’m sorry, Jaal. I’m so sorry. I-”

His forehead met her own, and he cupped her cheek. Jaal’s eyes were wet, and his hands, aquiver.  

Okay. Maybe there was a bit of room for tears.

“I thought I had lost you. I- you-”

He trailed off into a shaky breath, and shut his eyes. “I don’t know what I would do without you.”

Jaal’s voice was hushed; a whisper, as if they were exchanging a secret, and her chest shuddered as she suppressed a sob. Plenty of room for tears, she decided. Not as if she had a choice- they fell unbidden. His thumb traced gentle circles on her cheek, and he murmured comforts so quiet she couldn’t catch them; his voice was enough, though. It grounded her, kept her present and out of her head.

He had that effect.

“ Never again ,” whispered Sara, voice quivering.

“You are every star in my sky.” Jaal touched her nose with his and then, wiping away the moisture from her cheeks, pressed a gentle kiss to her brow. “Never again.”

She didn’t know what that meant. Didn’t know what the warmth blooming in her frozen chest meant, what the stutter of her heart at the touch of his lips meant, what her hurt at the idea of leaving him meant. She didn’t know what love meant.

But perhaps , thought Sara, I want to.

Chapter Text

Jab, cross, hook, dodge, repeat.

Sara’s knuckles were numb, and she was exhausted, but nonetheless, the punches continued; she had to push herself, had to get back to how she was. She’d been out of commission for nearly three weeks, alternating between the Tempest medbay and her quarters, initially, and then the Nexus’ hospital; the first week had been spent connected to life support, and she’d been unable to eat- her body refused to digest, to do anything. Sara had softened, and then she had hollowed.

Her implant had been fixed, first by Lexi and Gil, temporarily, and then permanently by the Nexus bioengineers. Well, they called it fixed, but Sara was still under numerous warnings, especially for the first few months- one of which was not to exert herself. As if that was going to happen.

Nevertheless, she needed to build up the strength she’d lost. The Tempest wasn’t permitted to leave the Nexus for another five days- something about needing to run ‘further tests’- so Sara was confined to their makeshift training space belowdecks, with a punching bag, the surrounding mats, and not much else. She had considered asking someone to spar, but thought better of it- as loathe as she was to admit it, she was still effectively crippled. If someone were to injure her, even accidently, in a sparring match, she’d be done for.

For now, the bag would do.

Jab, cross, hook, dodge, repeat. Jab, cross, hook, dodge, repeat.

The door hissed open, and she heard heavy footsteps draw nearer- Jaal had taken to stepping heavier around her, to alert her of his presence. Sara didn’t do well with being startled, and she’d been told to take measures to keep her heart rate consistent; his smile didn’t do her any favours though, because her heartbeat always picked up a little when he flashed one at her.

Smitten idiot. It was dumb; she was dumb.     

The next punch was a measure harder, just to make a point.

“Do we need some stronger equipment?” quipped Jaal, leaning against the wall to regard her with amusement, and something like poorly masked concern. His expressions were easy to read, now.

Sara breathed a laugh. “Careful, big guy, or the next one’s coming your way.”

He smiled, and held out a bottle. “I brought you some water. Lexi told me you must-”

“-stay hydrated; yeah, I know,” she finished, reaching forwards to take and uncap it, taking a long swig while she shifted from foot to foot. Exercise always got her a little antsy- God knew why. “Thanks, bud. You’re a lifesaver.”

They’d kissed, what, three times, now? And she was still stuck on calling him ‘bud’.

Jaal took a step closer, and squeezed her shoulder; the look he gave her now was free in its concern, a gentle knit of the brow and a thinning of his lips. Sara had to avert her gaze- she didn’t like the weird feeling it gave her deep in her stomach, or the guilt. He worried, she knew, and it made her feel terrible. He didn’t deserve to have to worry about her, just because she was an idiot who overloaded her implant.

“Sara,” he begun, grasping her chin to tilt her head towards his, searching her eyes with his own, “you’ve been down here for hours. You need rest.”   

She managed a heavy sigh, and set her hands on his shoulders. His muscles twitched a little under her touch, and she could feel the joints shifting when he reached up to smooth her hair from her face, rubbing his thumb along her cheekbone. Sara wasn’t sure why he did that; she was sweaty, and it was gross.

“I know, I know,” she said, after a moment; it sounded defeated, even to her own ears. “But… I need to train, Jaal. I spent three weeks in a bed; I can’t just go from that, straight to the field.”       

He smiled, but it was melancholy. “I know. But this isn’t good for you.”

Sara’s head thudded against his chest, and her hands slid from his shoulders to rest on his back in a loose embrace. “I know.”

The two stood like that for a long while, unspeaking and rested against one another. Jaal wore the face he did when deep in thought, and Sara was perfectly content to remain in his arms and watch, and think to herself.

Something had most definitely changed between them. Jaal had been at her bedside for hours, every single day, sometimes even going so far as to sleep there. Even when she was kept unconscious, he would sit and tinker to keep himself entertained, checking her vitals regularly and speaking to Lexi when she was present- which was often. Sara, even after her condition had stabilized, had been kept under close watch, particularly before her implant had been professionally fixed. And even on the Nexus, in her peculiar little section of their southernmost hospital wing, Jaal had rarely left her side- to the frankly amusing disgruntlement of the medical staff.

And that first time she had woken, hooked up to the medbay life support and countless other fluids and stabilizers, when Jaal had admitted he felt deeply for her. They hadn’t spoken of it once, but his words still rang present in her head, at every given moment.

“You are every star in my sky.”

She’d been on a plethora of drugs at the time, and couldn’t recall the majority of their conversation prior or following, but that, she remembered crystal clear.

Boy, she thought. I’m in deep.     

It was then she noticed Jaal giving her an expectant look, with a tilted head and slight smirk. Ah; he had said something. Something Sara had missed entirely.

“I- uh, come again?”

The smirk grew into a smile, and he gave a light chuckle. “I asked if you have been drawing lately. Liam has gifted me with paper, and cray-yoons, and I was wondering if you would perhaps care to… join me, later on? I remain not very good, sadly.”

Sara lit up; she hadn’t been drawing much, what with the bed confinement and all.

“Oh! I’d love to, yeah. I think you’d like crayons; they’re thicker than pencils, generally, and they have a sorta… waxy consistency? It sounds bad, and it kind of is bad, really, but they’re fun to draw with, and they come in a lot of colours, too. Well, so do pencils, but colour pencils are harder to find; oh, and crayons are sturdier, so you can mess around with lines and hard shading, and-”

She cut herself off, flushing and conscious that he probably had no idea what the hell she was talking about. Jaal was smiling, though, in that fond, warm way of his.

“Sorry,” she managed. “Rambled.”

To her surprise, Jaal laughed, and ran a hand up her side. “Don’t apologise. It’s endearing.”

Oh, they’d gotten close; Sara wasn’t sure when, but now, there were bare inches between them, and the space seemed to be growing smaller. She always imagined opposite worlds when their eyes met, with his so feline, large, and blue- a planet like Havarl, or Aya- and hers, hazel and monolidded; Earthen eyes.

She could never truly leave behind a place that lay in her gaze.

This time, it was Sara who pressed her lips to his, first, drawing him closer with a hand at the nape of his neck. One of Jaal’s arms slid around her waist to rest at the small of her back, fingers running down the divots of her spine, and the other rose to card through her hair. She sighed against his lips, the exhale becoming a gasp when he tugged, ever so lightly, at her ponytail.

This kiss was different again; they had yet to share one quite the same. This was fond, and caring, and loving- everything a kiss should be. And yet, they shared it in their odd little gym, where anyone could walk in at any moment. And Sara was sweaty; not ideal.

Jaal withdrew only to mouth a trail down her neck, at which she sighed, but also whispered, “Bite me where someone can see it and I’ll airlock you. I haven’t forgotten about that.”   

He only laughed and began to move backwards, tugging at her clothes until she followed, still held tightly in his grasp. Jaal fell back onto one of the benches, dragging Sara down to his lap, hands trailing up beneath her shirt to explore the expanse of her torso, warm against her cool skin. Their lips met again, more fervent than before- it was a quicker, more passionate pace, but there remained a mutual rhythm between them.

Sara’s fingers carded through the divots in his head, running down his chest to his hips, where one hand remained, tracing lazy circles, while the other crept up his back underneath his rofjiin, running along the muscles and jutting bones she could feel through his under armour. Jaal exhaled sharply against her lips, and pressed their foreheads together, gazing at her with wide, adoring eyes.

“Lovely,” he breathed, voice serious and grave. “You are lovely.”        

She laughed, pressing her face into his chest to avoid his all-encompassing gaze. Sara loved the way he looked at her, loved how it made her feel, but it made a heat rise deep within her; a kind she wasn’t quite sure how to handle; not the sexy kind.         

One of his hands withdrew from where it traced her spine, and lowered to run up her thigh. Sara bit down on his shoulder- lightly- to muffle the soft, wanton noise that threatened to escape her, but it seemed only to encourage him, as his other hand joined, ghosting up and down her hipbone.  

“Y-you know,” attempted Sara, words stuttering out into a quiet moan when his touch drifted further up her leg, underneath the hem of her shorts. “You know, I’ve been thinking about you. A lot.”

Jaal’s movements stilled, and his gaze once again met hers, burning and alight with something she couldn’t quite place, but that she recognised.  

The heat in Sara’s cheeks bloomed, and a small, nervous knot formed in her stomach, but she continued regardless. “I... you’re- I mean, I like you. A lot.”

He frowned, as if to say, ‘one would hope’. She supposed using ‘like’ in other contexts was a very human thing, after all. Sara tried again.

“I care about you. I- well, deeply. I guess I- uh- sorta...” and she trailed off, steeling herself into meeting his gaze; nevertheless, when she continued, her voice was significantly quieter. “You mean the world to me, Jaal. The galaxy.”

He smiled wide, and leaned forwards to press a gentle, lingering kiss to her lips.

“And you, to me. You are like nobody I have ever known, and what we have… I would not trade it for my life.”

Jaal’s arms lifted to wrap around her waist, and hers, around his shoulders. The air around them had changed from something hot, and heavier, to… tender. It was good, and pure, and it felt warm and enveloping and right.

She never felt cold, when she was with him.

“What do we have, Jaal?” asked Sara, as it occurred to her that she was genuinely unsure.

He frowned, and he pressed his brow to hers, hands tracing small circles at the nape of her neck. “I am... unsure. I love spending time with you- and you, you’re marvelous, and strange, and beautiful, and I know we are very different- galaxies different- but I find that I… don’t entirely care. I do not know what we have, Sara, but I love it, and I don’t want it to end.”

She smiled, and cupped his cheek. “I boarded our ark to Andromeda over six hundred years ago, you know? And ever since, everything’s just gone to shit. You, Jaal; you’re the only thing that’s gone right.”        

“Then, I trust you are in agreement to-” he made a wide, erratic gesture that nearly knocked her off his lap. “-this continuing?”

“With all my heart, big guy.”

Sara had fallen asleep with a crayon in her hand and pencil smudged on her cheek, head rested in Jaal’s lap and curled against his side. The angara himself had his head tipped back against her headboard, snoring- Liam didn’t know that was a thing he did. Peebee apparently did, though- or at least, that’s what she insisted.

“Just let them sleep!”

The asari in question shot him a pout, gesturing towards the sleeping two with a flourish, the glint of mischief that concerned him- for her well being as much as theirs- sparkling bright. She had a marker in hand, and not one of the washable ones- it’d be a bitch to get off, especially from one’s facial region.

“Come on, Liam! Live a little. He probably wouldn’t even know what it was.”

Oh, regularly, Kosta would be bouncing at the idea. If he wasn’t afraid of incurring Sara’s mighty wrath, that- last time- had his comb confiscated for an entire three days.

“Peebs, he knows what it is, right? And even if he didn’t, you think she’d just let that slide, say nothin’ about it?”  

They had to be quiet. It was suspicious enough to be skulking around the tech lab at these hours, let alone giggling, with markers. Liam thought it’d be something, well, classic- water on the face, ice down the shirt, stuff like that. He was not, however. going to be responsible for a crude drawing on the Pathfinder’s not-boyfriend’s face. That was how you got airlocked.

Peebee gave him a miffed look. “Then what do you suggest?”

Well, okay, perhaps he would be responsible. At least it wouldn’t be a dick; they weren’t ten.

“Draw a butt; they’re universal.”

When Liam had said universal, he had not meant ‘one on each’.