Chapter Text
Jaal balanced the tray of drinks against his forearms as he carried it into the engineering bay. The room was surprisingly quiet for how many bodies filled the space — or perhaps not surprisingly, given his intention with the meeting.
Six pairs of eyes snapped towards him as he moved closer, reflecting various expressions in their vivid spectrum of irises. He caught curiosity, fatigue, confusion, and in a certain pair of bright eyes that didn't leave his, a bemusement betrayed by the smile lifting one corner of her mouth.
"Greetings, my dearest friends," Jaal said as he approached the semi-circle of chairs where the ground crew of the Tempest sat waiting. "Thank you for joining me today."
"You marked this meeting as the highest priority, non-optional," Sara commented, but her smile had ticked up now that he was within reach.
"And it is," Jaal countered. He met her extended hand with a warm mug, and the expressions on everyone else's faces quickly shifted to anticipation or excitement.
Sara sat front row and center, each crew member within arm's reach. Peebee lounged to the right of her, Cora sat ramrod straight on the left. Drack was behind the asari, chewing something unidentifiable. Vetra was beside him and behind Sara, head resting in the palm of her hand. Liam was behind Cora, his expression bright and blank.
Jaal lifted each cup carefully, sparing a second glance to ensure the right beverage went to the right person. It wasn't hard to parse: after Sara's black coffee came another cup so full of cream it likely couldn't legally still be called coffee, an asari tea blend, a mixed drink of clear soda and red syrup topped with artificial cherries, straight liquor, and dextro hot chocolate.
Jaal waited until everyone's hands were full and their shoulders were loose before he spoke again. "As you all know, we have not left the Hyperion in a month, as we wait for Scott's official recovery period to end in order for him to join us."
"Which is supposed to happen in 5 days," Sara said.
"4 days and 15 hours, actually, but who's counting," Peebee added dryly.
Unperturbed, Jaal continued: "All this time… grounded, with little to do and nowhere to go, seems to have frayed the edges of our relationships. I believe it would be beneficial if we aired some of our grievances, in order to address our issues in a healthy, productive way."
"Wait a sec," Peebee said, her words coming out slightly muffled around the cherry stem she was working around her mouth. "You're giving us permission to bitch each other out?"
Sensing the storm ominously forming over the horizon, Jaal thought it wise to reiterate his last statement: "Healthy. And productive."
Six pairs of eyes blinked at him.
Sara, who'd spent nearly every moment of her life living with vaguely unstable species in or from the Milky Way, only managed to say: "Oh, Jaal, no.”
Then the storm broke.
"Cora keeps using all the hot water and honestly on what?” Peebee said. “I know for a fact her skincare routine has two steps. And step one is showering.”
Cora blew on her tea. "If you took regulation showers you wouldn't have this problem."
"There is nothing regulation about this body, you think five minutes is enough for me? The real issue is, the boys hacked the hot water timer ages ago, it shouldn't even run out at all!"
"Maybe this is an object lesson. One day you'll leave this ship and you need to actually learn how to share and use your resources properly," Cora replied mildly. “It's not as if it's difficult to hack a hacked device."
Peebee was so irritated she spat her cherry stem. It bounced off the ground, perfectly tied.
"Do you have anything you'd like to say, Cora?" Jaal asked.
"Yes, I do," Cora replied, and Jaal smiled, clearly thinking she meant to apologize. "Vetra is growing cannabis in her room and that's a class-four plant. She doesn't have a license."
Vetra clicked her tongue. "You're welcome to use some. It might help loosen you up."
Drack, intimately familiar with unwinnable wars he had absolutely no reason to be part of, decided to enter the fray. "Someone keeps pilfering my fuel combustors. They're expensive."
"Someone has to pay for all the hot water somehow," Vetra mumbled into her hot chocolate.
"Why do you have fuel combustors?" Sara asked without turning around.
The back row did not answer her.
She scrubbed a hand over her face. "We're not low on funds, we can pay for hot water."
"How do you know that?" Vetra asked, incredulous. "You haven't checked the ship balance in three months."
Sara choked on her coffee, her words coming out in a splutter. "What—we— we were prepping for the final assault against the Archon! I’m sorry money wasn’t top of mind for me! I knew someone would tell me if we were low! Right?"
She shot a wide-eyed look to Cora, who shot a wide-eyed look back. "Right!"
Cora wisely took the opportunity to fill her mouth with tea. Vetra became quite interested in something on her omni-tool.
Sara looked between the two of them, mouth open. “How low did we get!”
“Don’t worry about it,” Vetra said as she discreetly checked on some of her not-technically-illegal cashflow funnels. “Drack has a lot of fuel combustors.”
Sara’s bone-deep sigh was lost beneath the sound of Peebee’s laughter. The asari leaned over to boop the human Pathfinder on the nose. "Rich girls never think about money."
"Bite me, Peebee,” Sara said automatically, swatting at the hand.
"Isn't that his job?"
Her mouth now set in a thin line, Sara raised her hand.
Jaal, who had never been in a classroom setting that utilized this gesture, clasped her hand gently between his own. "Yes, darling one?"
"I feel like we're not acknowledging the fact Peebee is clearly teaching herself choreography, and recording music."
"You can't prove that," Peebee said immediately.
Everyone else started speaking at once:
"We can all prove that, it's not anywhere close to a secret—"
"It's a very small ship, we can hear you —"
"You're posting videos online , you dork—"
"Will you teach me to move my hips that way? It doesn't seem to be a muscle I have."
The last comment had come from Jaal, who couldn't resist joining in. He attempted to demonstrate his lack of hip-to-glute coordination, which failed in the sense that he did not lack coordination at all. The room went silent, then broke out into laughter and whistling — all except one human woman, who seemed to have forgotten her entire language.
Vetra craned her neck to check if Sara was still breathing. "Thank the spirits we changed your soap so it would block your pheromones. I don't know if we would have made it."
"You did what?" Sara demanded.
"Lexi didn't tell you?" Vetra asked, seeming genuinely surprised. "She's the one who fulfilled the order. We had it labeled a medical necessity."
"It was necessary for survival. Plus, the little asari is like a nuclear bomb," Drack said, gesturing his head towards Peebee, who was working on another cherry stem. "But even you were pretty bad in the beginning, kid."
"Oh, right, after Liam's little armor switch-up. I thought I was going to have to get sensory blockers after that."
Sara's face darkened nearly to the shade of Peebee's drink.
Jaal titled his head as he ran the date back. A frown tugged the corner of his mouth. "That implies you were aware of Sara's covert feelings from their very origin, and never alerted me.”
"They weren't very covert," Vetra said slowly, though gently.
"But you still never told me?”
The unbalanced scales of life had forced Vetra to grow up quickly, shouldering the burden of both older sister and surrogate mother from a young age. She was extremely adept at facing emotional conversations. Which is why she immediately deflected. "Liam knew too, and didn't tell you."
"Oi! I was trying to get them together! I know my methods were so subtle—"
Sara turned in her chair so she could pin him with her stare. "You once locked us in the galley together and played smooth jazz."
Liam merely shrugged. "Honestly man, that really should have worked."
“It was 3 pm.”
“The sexiest time of the day.”
Sara, who'd never learned to quit when she was behind, did not miraculously start then. “Seriously. How did you think that was going to play out?”
Liam stared, like it was obvious. “Ya know. Eat some yogurt, listen to smooth jazz, and then hook up on the kitchen table.”
“They would never have sex on the communal—” Cora clocked the guilt painted across Sara’s face. She tugged at her hair, briefly sporting a stress-induced mohawk, “ —Sara, we are a society, there are rules!”
“Why did I sign that crew clause that I wouldn't bang on the shared furniture if no one else has to follow it?” Peebee fumed.
Liam laughed at the outrage in Peebee’s voice. “Who are you trying to shag on the table?”
“Everyone,” came the response from Sara, Cora, Vetra, and Jaal.
Vetra cut her eyes at Cora. “I thought you were straight?”
“Tell that to her haircut,” Peebee muttered.
It took a few seconds for Liam to catch on, but when he did, his mouth fell open. “Hey! How come you've never come onto me!”
“Or Drack, she said hopefully,” Sara said, hopefully.
“First off, ew, Sisyphus much?” — “That is the wrong story,” Sara cut in, but Peebee, never one to be slowed down by something like objective fact, ignored her. —“Second off, right now I'm really into people who hate me just a little. It adds a nice pizazz. You're just too … nice.”
“You hit on the angara though? Look at him.” Liam pointed at Jaal, who was at that moment smiling benevolently. “When you look up nice in the dictionary it shows a picture of that face.”
“What a kind addition to your language books!” Jaal said, honored.
No one had the heart to correct him.
“Yeah duh, for the novelty. A whole new species! ” Peebee responded, then turned to address Jaal directly. “Plus, you're the kind of nice that for sure translates to worship in bed, and what girl turns down that opportunity?”
Sara spied the blank, vaguely perplexed look that came over Jaal’s face. Knowing he was likely about to ask for clarification on how anyone could have sex without an intensity bordering on devotion, she blurted out, "Weren't we talking about your music career?”
“Oh yes! Back to meeeee.” Pelessaria B'Sayle, who lived by the motto there is no bad publicity, perked up immediately. "The people crave entertainment. Plus, a girl's always gotta know her next move. I figure in 100, 150 years, the market will be wide open.”
"Isn't it reductive for you to want to be a sexy dancer?" Cora asked. "Don't you, as an asari, want to do more with your exceptionally long life?"
"Don't you ever wonder what your life might be like if you got that stick out of your ass?"
Jaal raised his brow at Peebee. She pouted, then heaved out a sigh.
"Soooo-rrrry-yyy," she said, managing to stretch the word into three syllables. "It's just that everyone says that. Wrong. Literally wrong. You do cool shit for like, 300 years, and then realize that's a long-ass time. Then you try to be a popstar. It's a linear pathway."
Sara, who had worked with a primarily asari team on Mars, gave her an incredulous look. "There's no way that's true."
"Bet.”
In a flash, Sara's fingers flew across her omni-tool. It rang a single time, and then projected the image of an unamused asari: “What's the emergency?”
“Hey Lex, we're fine, just wondering — wait, is that human blood on your scrubs?”
“Yes.” Lexi said this in a bored tone, as if she was confirming the time.
“Who's injured? We haven't left the ground in weeks!”
“Gil severed one of his fingers.”
“What.”
Gil’s head momentarily popped into frame. He flashed a wide grin, pain-killer eyes glassy. “She reattached it!”
“It's my third time doing this,” Lexi said mildly. “Do you have a question, or…?”
It was a testament to the spirit (or the failing mental health) of the group that they moved on without further comment. “I had a quick inquiry. Do you…do you have future aspirations of pursuing a career in entertainment?”
Now it was Lexi’s turn to stare. “What?”
“Are you going to get bored of being a boring doctor and be a cool pop star instead?” Peebee asked over Sara’s shoulder.
“A pop star? No.”
Sara was so smug it practically radiated from her body. “SEE!” she hissed in Peebee’s direction.
“But I might become a professional sylliam player.”
Sara froze, then turned her head slowly. Lexi tapped her chin in consideration. “It's like a… what’s a human equivalent, hmm? Like a stand up bass.”
“Thank yewwww Lexi, bye-bye now!” Peebee reached over, shutting off the call. Then she sprung from her seat, showcasing the choreography she had most certainly been learning for her future endeavors as a singer/dancer.
Jaal, unfazed by the ass twerking in his general direction, looked over the group. Sara slumped, dejected and fuming, Cora seemed to be attempting to hone her biotics into an ability to vanish into thin air, Drack had pulled a bag from somewhere and was now rummaging within it, Vetra was checking something on her omni-tool, and Liam sat patiently. When Jaal caught his eye, he smiled warmly.
“Would anyone else like to share their feelings?” Jaal asked.
Drack cleared his throat, the sound like a car backfiring. From the bag he pulled a handful of thin, brownish sticks. “I would like to talk about guns.”
“Your feelings about them?”
“No. Our lack of them.”
Cora raised her eyebrows at him. “We have an armory.”
He tossed the sticks — dehydrated meat, Jaal realized — into his mouth and chewed, teeth flashing. “We should be able to keep guns in our rooms. For defense.”
If possible, her eyebrows went even higher. “Against who?”
“Invaders.”
“Who do you think is going to invade us now?” Cora asked, just as Sara chimed in, “Why do you think it needs to be guns, specifically? We all have the ability to take care of ourselves.”
His head swiveled in Sara’s direction, as if considering her for the first time. “What if you’re pregnant and can’t fight?”
“For the love of—” Sara pulled at her face. “Drack. I can’t get pregnant.”
Drack blinked at the human, one eye, then the other. “Your species. Is so dumb. You figured out space flight last. Have you ever thought about that? Every person in this room got to it before you.”
He pointed at Peebee. “Before you.” Then Vetra. “Before you.” And then Jaal. “Before you. There were spiders that figured out how to fly rockets before you.”
“The rachni are an incredibly intelligent hive mind,” Sara mumbled into her collar. Pointedly, she offered no other argument.
His face plainly said: Are you done. “Okay. The bug hive got to space before you. I don’t think you know anything. You and Mr. Emotions—”
He waved at Jaal, who for his part, wasn’t sure if the title was a compliment or insult, “—have been bumping uglies for a few months. You don’t know shit. I don’t want my great grandchildren at risk.”
Compliment, he decided. Jaal placed his hands over his heart, inclining his head towards the krogan. “Your concern is touching, my esteemed friend. But it is not a situation you need to think upon with concern. We can guarantee it. We had professionals from both of our medical fields confirm it, as Sara’s fertility blocker recently expired.”
The group went silent. Cora shut her eyes. Sara bent over, tucking her head between her knees.
“Hmm,” Jaal said, contemplative. “It would appear that was not public information.”
Peebee made a sound that might have been a laugh, or might have been a shriek, or might have been the sound of several pack animals baying at once.
“I kneeeeeeew something was off about you!” She jabbed a finger at Sara, then Cora. “And it’s you too, isn’t it! You’ve both been grinding my ass for days now—”
“Peebee,” Sara said, still bent over.
“And not even in a good way—”
“Peebee.”
“All because your stupid, prehistoric, first century blockers expired!”
Drack, who generally understood every third word that came out of Peebee’s mouth, found he’d dropped to a historic one out of five. He leaned towards Vetra and whispered, “What are they talking about?”
It was not a whisper. Men like Drack had never learned to whisper. Vetra replied, full voice: “Human women bleed all their eggs once a month during their reproductive years and the reality of it makes their monkey brains insane.”
Drack stared at Cora and Sara as if he’d never seen them before. He summed up his feelings eloquently: “What the fuck?”
“It's only one egg, Vetra,” Sara said tiredly.
“You only have one egg?”
“No, it’s one egg at a time. Usually.”
Drack looked at though he was attempting to fathom the inner workings of the universe. “You lay eggs?”
Liam had zoned out for most of this conversation, as he'd acquired the sack of dried meat and was happily munching away. But then he realized it was relevant to him. “Wait, why did yours expire before mine?”
“We had the original-issued Alliance blockers,” Cora grumbled. “Ours weren’t updated when the colonists got theirs.”
Sara piped in, “They needed a first round of people to populate Andromeda, and please remember there once existed a timeline where Cora, Scott, and I were normal crew members who lived normal lives.”
“I mean, even if we had arrived and it hadn't been—” Vetra waved her hand to encompass full of hostile genocidal aliens— “I don't understand when Alec thought you would have time to find mates and pop out babies?”
“I’m irrelevant in this hypothetical. It would have been my job to set up Scott,” Sara replied.
Vetra squinted at her. “Mmm. Too much to address there. Bypassing that one— you still spend 99% of your time with this crew. So who is Scott ending up with?”
Sara went silent, perhaps contemplating this alternative reality in depth for the first time. In her defense, there'd been other pressing matters.
Slowly, she turned towards Cora. “Please tell me my father didn't use his extensive reach to handpick an engineer he thought his son might fancy?”
Cora, who had figured it out before they even left the Milky Way, flicked her wrist dismissively. “Then I won't.”
“At least that solves the problem of where little Ryder is going to sleep,” Drack said. “We're not exactly loaded with bunks.”
“You didn't want to share your spacious galley?” Vetra teased.
“He owns an instrument.” Drack huffed. “I'd sooner strap him to the roof.”
“Drack—” Sara said in warning.
Drack only shrugged. “Very carefully. Strap him to the roof very carefully.”
“I knew Gil was a personality hire—” Peebee started, then cut herself off. “Wait. Who'd your dad pick for you, heiress?”
Sara rolled her eyes so hard she nearly saw her brain stem. “He didn't.”
“Not Suvi?”
“I’m not good enough for Suvi,” Sara responded at the same time Cora said, “She's not good enough for Suvi.”
The two women looked at each other for a beat. “It hurts more when you say it,” Sara said.
Cora acquiesced with a tilt of her head. “Sorry. He also didn't think I was good enough to be the Pathfinder.”
“Fair point.”
“Hey, hold on a min!” Liam exclaimed through a mouthful of jerky. His face lit up. “Cora, maybe we were picked as a pair! If you're not too busy, would you want to have a baby?”
He said this with the same tone he'd used earlier in the day, when he'd offered up his leftover laundry detergent.
Cora looked at the ceiling like she hoped it might collapse on her. “Why would I do that?”
“I dunno. They're cute. Gil’s having a baby. I'd love to have a baby.”
“I can get you a baby,” Vetra said, in the same tone she'd used earlier when she'd taken Liam up on his offer of leftover laundry detergent.
Sara turned her head so fast she nearly gave herself whiplash. “What do you mean I can get you a baby??”
“Oh, are you interested?” Vetra asked smoothly.
"No Vetra on principle there will be no baby getting—”
“Wait.” Liam, unbothered by Cora's lack of interest (or perhaps just really enthralled with the jerky), could not resist helping in a crisis. “If the blockers expiring are driving you two nuts, why not just replace them? It takes three seconds.”
“It takes you three seconds. Ours is an implant, and then we're out of commission for twelve hours,” Sara replied. She gave up trying to stare a hole into Vetra’s forehead and slumped back in her seat. “We both can't be out of commission at the same time.”
“But we're not doing anything right now.”
“Exactly. That's worse. You all might mutiny and hijack the ship.”
It was a valid concern, as at least three people in attendance had thought about it.
“Who is third in command?” Peebee piped in. “Like, if something does take you both out.”
“We're operating under the assumption that if something killed both me and Sara, it killed all of us,” Cora replied bluntly.
“I mean that's obvious, but who legally is third in command?”
Cora looked at Sara, who had suddenly become very interested in her fingernails.
Peebee squinted at Sara. “Who did you pick?”
It seemed there had never been anything more interesting in Sara’s life than her fingernails. “There were just so many good options—”
“If you say it's Dr. Killjoy I'll throw myself off the roof of this ship.”
“It's not Lexi, you little goblin! It has to be someone who's combat certified, and preferably has a military background.”
Sara finally looked up from her nails. She made singularly desperate eye contact with Jaal, who promptly attempted to assist her.
“It is me,” Jaal said, tilting his head respectfully. “And I bear the weight of that responsibility—”
Sara had hoped her eye contact would convey change the subject immediately. Jaal, in his attempt to mitigate the issue, immediately compounded it.
Peebee screamed so loudly it startled some birds outside the ship.
“JAAL?? FOR THE INITIATIVE??” She was a tiny blue incarnation of indignation. “THE ONLY ONE OF US NOT IN THE INITIATIVE??”
Jaal lowered himself a considerable distance, until he was at eye level with Peebee. “I apologize that the situation might seem unorthodox. I assure you, I would give my life to ensure the need would never occur.”
“I'm not mad at you, you're a perfect creature with no flaws.” Some of her anger— all show, as he'd guessed it— turned to smoke. “I'm still assuming you only picked Sara because you didn't realize I was available.”
Beside her, Sara tossed her hands.
Jaal blinked at Peebee, a small smile forming. “You and I both know your attraction to me was superficial and fleeting. Now, you're only baiting Sara because you're hurt. We are secure in our relationship, so this method of attack shall not be successful.
Peebee sniffed. “So there's no use bringing up that time I left a thong in your bed?”
Jaal had miscalculated — he understood so much, but the warfare between sisters was still unfathomable.
He scooped up Sara, chair and all, separating the two of them before the now-hissing Sara could decide between throttling and stabbing.
As Jaal moved Sara to the other side of Vetra, Cora felt it necessary to finish the thought. “Vetra was the best choice for third, but she would abuse the position immediately.”
This seemed to surprise Liam. “What would you do?”
“With Pathfinder access?” Vetra sounded like she'd never thought about it before. She gave it a moment of genuine contemplation. “Drain Tann’s bank account, steal the ship, and become a pirate.”
Cora drew an imaginary check mark in the air. “Then, they wouldn't even let us write Drack’s name on the form.”
The krogan’s only defense, delivered while he cleaned his teeth with his dagger: “Hehe heheheh hehehe.”
“And we believed you, Liam, would be plenty capable, but would hate the bureaucracy.”
“It's pretty much just meetings,” Sara said, having been coaxed out of her temporary bout of murderous intent by the presence of Jaal’s fingers in her hair. “So many meetings. Meetings and paperwork.”
“I wasn’t talking about them, I was talking about me,” Peebee butted in.
“There's no chance you even want the responsibility!”
“Yeah, but I want to be asked, have you considered that?”
Here's what Peebee had miscalculated: Sara had lived her entire life as a devoted older sister, which meant endless years of self-sacrifice. It also meant she knew how to keep up with every skeleton in every closet, and kill someone in three sentences if necessary.
“How about this for consideration.” No amount of soothing contact from Jaal could save the asari now. “You're a kleptomaniac, you never turn in your reports on time, and you've hit on everyone under the age of 900 who's ever stepped foot on this ship, including a teenager!”
Peebee’s smug haughtiness evaporated. Unlucky for her, Vetra figured it out first, as evidenced by the pistol that made a sudden appearance.
“We need bracelets if someone is a minor it's not my fault youragingstructureisveryconfusing—” Peebee babbled, speaking faster and faster to preserve her own life.
Gently, Jaal reached over and placed his palm on top of the pistol. “Put the gun down, Vetra, please. I think we've reached a suitable transition.”
The group, on the very barest edge of bloodshed, stared up at him. Jaal straightened himself to his full height and took a deep breath. “I shall go through the list of transgressions, and each of you shall take ownership and apologize.”
The grumbling started, so he continued, “Alternatively, we can do group affirmations.”
The grumbling was replaced by looks of horror. Jaal possessed a broken helmet that contained scrap paper with all of their names. They'd go one by one, and everyone present had to lovingly compliment whoever's name was pulled. For this emotionally constipated group, it was a fate worse than bathroom cleanup duty.
“We'll do the apologies,” Cora confirmed.
It took a considerable amount of time and a significant amount of coaxing, but Jaal detailed every slight and argument referenced in the conversation. He gestured to each group member in turn, until in fits and starts, they'd all apologized. Some apologies were better than others (Peebee said I’m sorry you feel—! and then had to start over, no less than six times), but they all managed it.
At the conclusion of the conversation, Jaal was struck by a realization. “Liam, you asked for no apologies.”
At the sound of his name he blinked, rubbing away a mustache of creamer with the back of his hand. "I'm good."
This was true. If someone was keeping a record of healthy confrontation on the Tempest (no one was keeping a record) (okay fine, Lexi was keeping a record) it would state that Liam was the second most likely ground crew member to engage in conflict in a productive way. This was due in part to the fact he was clinically unbothered, and also because when he had issues, he mostly just… addressed them.
The longest consecutive amount of time he'd spent upset with someone on the ship was twelve minutes, and that was when Gil said the 2167 James Bond was better than the 2181 James Bond, and that was bloody mad.
And with such wise words, thus concluded the high-priority, non-optional ground crew meeting. Everyone but Sara fled the scene, clearly afraid that the broken helmet would make a surprise final appearance.
Jaal sat beside Sara in one of the now-empty chairs. She rested her head on his shoulder, hair spilling down his back in a way he still found enchantingly novel.
“I’m sorry this was an unmitigated disaster,” she said quietly.
Jaal draped his arm around her shoulder, fingers loosely playing with the ends of her hair. “On the contrary. This went perfectly well. Everyone had the opportunity to share and air the grievances that have been stewing in their bodies for so long, and to have them acknowledged. Things brought into the light hold such less power over us. You shall see: everyone will be better for it.”
Sara lifted her head slightly, narrowing her eyes at him as if trying to parse a language she couldn’t translate. “The angara have everything right, don’t they?”
His smile widened. “Not quite everything. Though I doubt there are any of us that would so boldly claim they could acquire a child.”
“Sweet heavens, I really need to address that,” Sara groaned, getting to her feet. “I can never tell when she’s joking and that one—”
Jaal cupped her elbow, deftly guiding her arm until it entwined with his. “—is a problem that can be solved later, my darling one. We have a limited number of days before our schedules will once again be full to the brim with tasks. I would like to enjoy every stolen moment with you that I can.”
“Oh?” Sara asked with a grin. Then, seeing the look on his face, the dark cast to his irises, repeated, “Oh!”
Jaal’s laugh tumbled out of him as Sara tugged him quickly out of the engineering bay. Extremely courteous man that he was, he detoured her from the first empty room they encountered – the galley – and managed to make it back to the Pathfinder’s Quarters. The doors locked with a satisfied clink.